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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623601">Ordinary Nature</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakepitnakki/pseuds/snakepitnakki'>snakepitnakki</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bad Parents Jack and Janet Drake, Canon-Typical Violence, Ecofascism, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Jason Todd is Robin, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Pamela Isley, Tim Drake is Hemlock, Work In Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:20:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,129</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakepitnakki/pseuds/snakepitnakki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months before his birth, Timothy Jackson Drake's life is forever altered-- all the way down to his DNA.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>"Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?” - Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini's Daughter</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake/Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>388</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>howdy yall!</p>
<p>so, first of all, In Stillness, In Silence is NOT abandoned. first I was just swept up in university things, and then ms. corona came, and my inspiration has taken an overall nosedive. I AM finishing it, even if it kills me. (it will).</p>
<p>in the meantime, I wrote this back in April and it's been collecting dust in my drive ever since. I figured I'd go ahead and post it, and hopefully, between this one and In Stillness, I'll get enough inspiration to get back into the swing of things. Be warned, I haven't read this since the day I wrote it, so. Zoinks. Pinch of salt?</p>
<p>and finally, I got around to creating a fic-oriented Tumblr sideblog, under the same user name: @ snakepitnakki. PLEASE feel free to nag at me for updates, or even just pop by to say hi:) let's be friends!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Janet had never really seen herself as a maternal figure. The concept of children, in itself, was a daunting one indeed-- but Janet Drake was never one to back down from a challenge. So when the time came that her husband proposed the idea of having a child, she had already come to terms with the idea. Besides, it was somewhat expected; many of the other prominent families in Gotham were currently expecting. At last month’s Wayne gala, she had had to field multiple well-wishes and invasive questions about when she planned to start her own family. Two separate invitations to baby showers had landed in her inbox last week. Thus, it was decided: the Drakes would have a child of their own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After all, how much work could one child be?</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Pregnancy was manageable. Janet had endured worse in a boardroom. Her body changed, but that was alright. Her emotions became a little more unstable and, well, that was decidedly less alright, but it wasn’t as if it were permanent. In three more months, the baby would make its grand entrance, and Janet would be back in the game, hustling investors with the best of them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She took a sip of her sparkling grape juice and glanced around the room, wanting nothing more than to sit down and take off her shoes. She would never actually follow through-- to show such a sign of weakness in front of these people was laughable-- but in the privacy of her own head, she allowed herself to indulge in her fantasy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jack was across the room near the hors d’oeuvres, making polite small talk with the twitchy man from a large Metropolis firm. Absently, she wished he would hurry along with her snacks. It was her last “hurrah”, as it were, before she retired from the public eye to give birth. She had begun to thin out her social calendar around the middle of month four, only deigning to show up to the important events in which her absence would be noticed. Logically, she knew that she had a perfectly good excuse to skip out on tedious functions. After all, Janet was quite literally the only pregnant woman in the room, all of the others having opted out. But she knew it wouldn’t be long before someone like Vicki Vale spun some sort of egregious tale that could hurt her reputation. So, maybe Janet was a little paranoid. But if you ran the second-largest conglomerate in Gotham, wouldn’t you be, too?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The string quartet started up once more, spurring the attendees back to life as Gotham’s elite paired up for the dance floor. Janet smoothed her hair back, dumping her empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray. Finally provided an ample excuse, Jack broke away from his conversation, turning a soft, easy smile towards his wife. Janet couldn’t help but quirk her own in response. God, but she truly did love her husband. She started forward, intent to meet him halfway, when--</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>CRASH!</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The wall of stained glass behind Janet shattered into pieces as several gas mask-clad men on ropes swung into the room. They landed on the broken glass with a resounding thud and raised their weapons. The room was in complete disarray-- screams filled the air as people scrambled for the now-blocked exits. Janet had been thrown to the floor upon the initial impact, and slowly, she blearily attempted to crawl towards where she had last seen Jack. Her wrist throbbed painfully, and her knees scraped against the shards of glass on the floor. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, children. There’s no need to panic...yet.” A low, raspy voice sounded from behind. Janet froze instantly, muscles tense with fear. She had never heard the voice herself, but her gut told her exactly who was standing behind her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How privileged you all are, to be present for the debut of my newest formula.” Scarecrow crooned, kicking a broken table out of his way as he advanced into the room. “But you already know a thing or two about privilege, </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>you?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A hiss filled the air. Looking up, Janet finally found Jack in the crowd. Their eyes met just before her vision began to go foggy as thick, green, gaseous clouds filled the air. The panicked screams returned ten-fold, and despite the fact that Janet prided herself on being able to keep an iron-clad grasp on her emotions, she began to scream with them.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Twenty-four hours later, the Gotham Gazette’s headline read, “A FRIGHTFUL NIGHT OF FINERY!”. Batman had apprehended Scarecrow and his goons shortly after they had gassed the crowd, but there wasn’t near enough antidote to go around. The entire gala had been subject to the gas (minus one Bruce Wayne, thanks to a luckily timed bathroom break). Not that it would’ve mattered much anyway-- when Scarecrow said that he had a new formula, he had well and truly meant it. Batman had run an analysis on the dregs of one of the henchmen’s containers and had picked up traces of one of Poison Ivy’s known pollens, as well as an additional, unidentifiable strain. That said, the typical Scarecrow antidote was rendered effectively useless, and Gotham’s elite was left to ride out their highs kicking and screaming.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was, all in all, quite the fucking mess. There was hardly any way to transport so many people, let alone keep them in a secure location. They also needed to be isolated from each other, lest anyone grow violent in their fear, but there were no plausible options. Eventually, the decision was made the leave them in the gala venue where they already were, with a large chunk of the GCPD on standby to babysit and break up any potential fights. The only exception to this policy was, of course, Janet Drake, who was known to be 6 months pregnant. She earned herself a ride to Gotham General by the Bat himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Over the next thirty-six hours, the drugs began to work their way out of the infected’s systems. Screams slowly petered out and eventually stopped as the Gothamites slowly came back to themselves. Morosely, haunted by the visions that had plagued them for over a day, they allowed themselves to be treated for the physical wounds that they had sustained during the attack. Seventy-two hours later, everyone had been cleared by medical staff to go home, confident that any and all after-effects of the poison could now be simply managed with a Tylenol. In short, the harrowing ordeal was over, and the masses were now cured.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All except Janet Drake.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She no longer screamed in fright or shook with terror, but her face was pallid and she couldn’t keep anything down. Seventy-two hours turned into a week, and she was still green around the gills. Literally. She swore when she looked into a mirror that the sheen of sweat on her forehead was tinted a soft olive green. Hospital staff worried, Jack doted, and Batman puzzled. At least the ultrasounds had come back perfectly clear. Eventually, Gotham General’s board decided that in her delicate state, she had been more susceptible to aftereffects of the drugs. It sounded logical enough, and by week two, Janet was able to keep down her soup and water. That wasn’t the only thing she put down, either-- her foot was down, and she was going home. She would not waste away in a public hospital this way. She wanted to lie in her </span>
  <em>
    <span>own </span>
  </em>
  <span>bed in her </span>
  <em>
    <span>own </span>
  </em>
  <span>home, despite everyone else’s outcry.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Three months later, Janet was still bed-ridden. She was still hard-pressed to keep solid foods down, and sometimes even liquids weren’t safe. She was dizzy, even when lying down, and her breath came in pants if she moved too quickly. Truthfully, she felt as though she were slowly dying. All of the private in-home doctors that the Drakes could hire could not keep her nausea at bay. In fact, the only thing they </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>do was monitor and track baby Drake’s progress through it all. There was question, for a while, if an emergency c-section would be necessary to keep the baby from contracting whatever it was that Janet suffered from; however, he seemed to be doing just fine, and Janet was adamantly against delivering him even a day prematurely.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Finally, though, the day had come. The contractions had started last night, but by now, Janet was so used to the pain and nausea that she hardly noticed at first. Steadily, they grew stronger, and Jack rang for the midwife. As the contractions greatened, Janet felt weaker and weaker. After months of prolonged illness, she was secretly unsure she would even be able to do this. </span>
  <em>
    <span>But</span>
  </em>
  <span>, a voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother’s sounded in her mind, </span>
  <em>
    <span>if you do this, imagine what the people will say. They will see how strong you are. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vale would eat her words. Janet could, and <em>would,</em> do this. She pushed when the time came, and at 3:02 am on July 19th, Timothy Jackson Drake made his way into the world. He was small and loud and cause for great panic-- when the midwife wiped his face, she immediately whisked him into the en-suite bathroom, pushing Jack out of the way before he could so much as touch his newborn son. Ignoring the yells from the new parents beyond the door, the midwife continued to clean him, her panic only growing. She fumbled with the clunky phone she kept in her bag for emergencies such as this. She held baby Timothy to her chest as the line connected to Gotham General’s maternity ward.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The nurse picked up the phone with a cheery hello that was quickly cut off.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s green. He’s green. Oh my god, he’s green!” She panted breathlessly without preamble. “Oh god, he’s sick!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then, before she could hear a response, she promptly passed out onto the floor, baby Timothy wailing in her arms.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you sm for all of the kudos, comments, and encouragements! I really run off of validation (lol). drop me a line here or on tumblr (@snakepitnakki); I'm still figuring out how side blogs work but I'd love some company:))</p><p>thanks again anordinarytrashcan for the assist!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Seven months after Jason had been taken in by billionaire/playboy/cowled vigilante (!!!) Bruce Wayne, Jason had slowly become accustomed to what he called “the better things in life”. These things were, in order:</span>
</p><p> </p>
<ol>
<li><span>A warm, dry, safe bed at night.</span></li>
<li><span>Alfred’s homemade blueberry pancakes</span></li>
<li><span>The satisfying crunch of a would-be rapists’ nose under his palm</span></li>
<li>
<span>That small, proud half-smile Bruce would turn on him occasionally (although Jason would never, </span><em><span>ever </span></em><span>admit this one out loud-- not even in the privacy of his own room).</span>
</li>
</ol><p> </p><p>
  <span>And, of course, Gotham’s newest player, Hemlock. (But that was yet another secret pleasure to be tucked away down deep. Although, admittedly, Jason was much worse at hiding his affection to Hemlock than he’d have liked, if Dick’s gleeful grin had anything to say about it).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Poison Ivy’s new protégé made his debut a few weeks ago, Bruce had nearly lost his mind. It’s one thing to invite a child to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fight </span>
  </em>
  <span>crime in a cape; it’s another, more unacceptable thing to invite a child to actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>commit </span>
  </em>
  <span>crime in a cape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Poison Ivy had disagreed and stated that her little flower had more power in his pinky than the Bat had in his entire body. The resulting hour-long showdown had led to the destruction of no less than 3 separate dilapidated warehouses near the docks, one fractured collarbone, four bruised ribs, and one </span>
  <em>
    <span>extremely </span>
  </em>
  <span>pissed off Bat as Poison Ivy and her scrappy little sidekick managed to slip away into the night. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Back at the cave that night, as Alfred carefully tended to the duo’s wounds, Bruce had called Dick to let him know of Gotham’s newest player. He was young, worryingly so, and given time, would surely become as dangerous as his mentor. Jason, the owner of the aforementioned bruised ribs, couldn’t help but be inclined to agree.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that was </span>
  <em>
    <span>weeks </span>
  </em>
  <span>ago. Jason’s trepidation over the new kid had long since melted away, despite the fact that his identity and the full scale of his powers were still unknown. Jason’s best guestimate was that Hemlock was around his age, if not the slightest bit younger. His skin, upon close inspection, seemed to have a slight greenish sheen to it, as if he were constantly motion sick; it was almost reminiscent of Poison Ivy herself. He wore nearly the same embarrassing green pixie boots that Robin himself wore, but instead of scaly shorts, Hemlock wore dark green leggings that shifted up seamlessly into a dark green long-sleeved shirt. Brown leather gloves and a leafy green domino completed his look, making for a very simple and understated outfit-- something that would surely see improvements as he solidified his place in Gotham’s underworld. He had a slim build and short stature, which definitely complicated matters when he and Robin went toe to toe. Robin’s usual opponents were larger in size; of course, he knew how to take out more lithe opponents due to his intensive training with Nightwing. Bruce would never let him out of the cave otherwise. But it wasn’t often that Robin got to </span>
  <em>
    <span>use </span>
  </em>
  <span>that training in real life. And besides, Hemlock wasn’t just a graceful fighter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was....well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was off-putting, was what he was. Because in the few weeks since his big debut, every time Robin had run into him, Hemlock was nothing short of nice (the physical combat notwithstanding). He wasn’t needlessly cruel, like the hired thugs and gang members were. He didn’t make trouble just for trouble’s sake, like the other Rogues tended to do. He was never out on his own, but rather stuck by Poison Ivy when she went out at night. And so far, Poison Ivy hadn’t gone out to do anything overtly villainous, sticking to her usual schtick of destroying labs she deemed ecologically harmful. She hadn’t murdered anyone in the few months before Hemlock appeared; Robin knew that that was the one thing that helped ease Batman’s mind. Hemlock, for what little they knew about him, didn’t seem like he was in the beginnings of becoming a crime lord. Instead, he exchanged quips with Robin during their fights, laughing and smiling all the while. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>disconcerting</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>weird</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Hemlock was </span>
  <em>
    <span>the </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad guy, but he didn’t feel like </span>
  <em>
    <span>a </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad guy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jason did have the presence of mind not to mention that to his mentor, however. Bruce hadn’t yet been able to get close to Hemlock. Ivy kept his attention with her full-force plant-based destruction. His hands were too full during their fights to keep an eye on her child protege; therefore, interactions with Hemlock were relegated to Robin. Jason couldn’t help but admit that, privately, in the back of his mind, it was kind of nice to have Hemlock to himself. All of the intel that the Batcomputer had on Hemlock had come solely from Jason’s personal interactions. Nobody else had gotten close enough. Jason’s life as the son of Bruce Wayne was owned by the public and the news rags that hounded his family around town; everyone in Gotham knew nearly everything about him. His private life wasn’t much better, with Bruce’s keen eyes and propensity to use “detective mode” on everything from “who tracked mud onto the carpet” to “who got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night”. Of course, he tried to lend Jason as much privacy as possible, purposefully avoiding entering Jason’s room without permission and resisting the urge to rifle through Jason’s case files in the Cave. But Bruce and Jason were still getting acclimated to living in each other’s space, and it was nice to have one thing completely, solely his own-- even if that one thing was a fight with a noted enemy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know, I think this makes us arch-enemies.” Robin joked, dropping into a roll to avoid Hemlock’s quick swing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I guess so.” Hemlock laughed, dancing away from the leg Robin swept out. “I’ve never really fought anyone else.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wait, what? Really?” Robin asked incredulously as he sprung back onto his feet, squaring back up with his opponent. “So am I just like, what, your default? That’s rude.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A few rooftops over, a large vine shot through the concrete, sending bricks flying. The noise startled both of the boys, Robin casting a quick furtive glance over his shoulder to make sure his mentor was alright. Hemlock snapped back to his senses at the motion and quickly capitalized on Robin’s divided attention, sending a quick flying kick directly into his sternum, sending him back a few feet. Robin coughed as he fell directly on his ass, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot for letting the other get the drop on him like that. The simple fall left his brain rattling in his skull.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I guess so.” Hemlock flicked his eyes to something behind Robin. “But you know what?” He leaned back on his heels, a soft curl on his lips. “Even if I had other enemies, you’d still be my favorite.” He shifted sideways towards the ledge of the roof. “Bye, Birdy!” He chirped as he leaped off the edge, dropping into the darkness below. Jason quickly climbed to his feet and looked over, but saw nothing; he turned to where Batman and Ivy had been duking it out, to find that Batman was also now alone. Robin quickly hopped the gap between the rooftops to make his way over to his mentor.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He got away. Again.” Robin grumbled, looking down. He absently kicked at some of the rubble, Hemlock’s words ringing in his head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You’d still be my favorite.”</span>
  </em>
  <span> He felt his face flush. “Sorry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright, lad. We’ll get a handle on them next time.” Batman clapped him on the back. Robin stumbled a bit under the weight of his hand, but quickly tried to play it off. That was another thing about Hemlock, though it was something Jason would </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>write down in a case file. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every time Robin interacted with Hemlock, it left him dizzy. And god, wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>embarrassing. Jason, given free reign over the massive library within the manor, had discovered a deep appreciation for classic literary works from the likes of Jane Austen. He’d passed many an hour in front of the fireplace, curled up next to Alfred on one of the overstuffed leather sofas, getting lost in the clever wordplay and drawn out romance plots. He’d read enough books wherein the protagonist gushed about a love interest taking her breath away and leaving her dizzy; he’d always thought it was melodramatic horseshit, but. Well. He’d never felt more off-kilter than he did after a run-in with Ivy’s charming sidekick. Not that he would ever, </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>admit such a thing to anyone, let alone Bruce.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Next time.” Jason repeated, looking into the darkness where their opponents had vanished. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<em>
    <span>Next time</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank y'all for the comments, kudos, and encouragement! I redid my outline and finally put a chapter count up-- it looks like I'm gonna be at 10 chapters overall, with this being the last of the small beebs before we start moving ahead. follow my tumblr @snakepitnakki so we can hang out! feel free to shot me a DM or whatever! let's be friends! </p>
<p>PLEASE heed tags from here on out. Canon typical violence and what have you. There's a small bit near the end that references the Dollmaker and contains references to the types of bad shit you'd expect from him. It starts after "And that's when the visions began". I'll put a quick summary in the endnotes if you wanna skip.</p>
<p>thanks @anordinarytrashcan for the beta! she beta'd everything up until the part I just referenced through the end, so any errors there are all mine!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Over the next few months, there were more details that Jason learned about Hemlock that he felt like keeping to himself. He didn’t know Hemlock’s real name, but he knew his age (12), his favorite color (red), and his favorite food (mac and cheese). Of those three specific tidbits, Jason only offered up Hemlock’s age into the Batcomputer’s database. Jason knew that Bruce would be angry if he found out that he was willfully withholding information from his mentor, but what was he supposed to say? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hey, while you were fighting to the death with Poison Ivy, I was sharing a bag of Sun Chips with her sidekick.</span>
  </em>
  <span> There was no place on a case file for Jason to jot down that his arch-nemesis/best friend by proxy preferred Coke to Pepsi. It wasn’t relevant information anyway, and it didn’t hold any sort of key to stopping Poison Ivy’s reign of terror onto the local human populace. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jason couldn’t be sure, but he thought that Hemlock kept their little escapades a secret from Poison Ivy, too. Not that they were “escapades” in any case; rather, it was inconsequential information and jokes traded over half-hearted left hooks whilst their mentors duked it out a couple of streets away. Slowly, they’d begun to drop the pretense of fighting altogether and had instead just stood around, kicking at rocks and shooting the shit until either Poison Ivy or Batman called for backup. They were still enemies, of course. But it was a waste of energy to fight each other, as well-matched as they tended to be. Jason personally preferred to snack on some granola bars during his time with Hemlock and conserve energy to fight those who really deserved it. Those, like, well.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s not dangerous!” Hemlock bit out forcefully.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hemlock.” Jason turned his body so that he could look at his friend head-on, ignoring the intense swooping in his stomach that always came from being in the vicinity of the other boy. It was another one of those nights where the duo sat and snacked rather than throwing the vicious punches that Batman and Ivy were exchanging down the block. But today, there was a tension between them, permeating the air and throwing their usual camaraderie off balance. “I watched her single-handedly level five city blocks. At once. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Last week</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It had been a hell of a spectacle, and hard to miss. Drake Industries was growing and so needed a new analytics building downtown. The downtown inner city was jam packed as it is, which meant that the only lot available was also one of the last patches of green meadow in the city, an oasis in the concrete jungle that was Gotham. It wasn’t much to look at; a small lot that couldn’t have been bigger than 500 x 500 feet, hosting a couple of dinky trees and a decrepit wooden memorial bench from the ’70s. It was a popular spot for junkies to relax out of the way of foot traffic, as it was tucked between a few buildings and generally ignored and forgotten by the main populace.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But not ignored and forgotten, as it turned out, by Poison Ivy.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When the decision was made public that Drake Industries had bought out the lot, along with the two buildings on either side of it, with intent to tear down the current buildings to create one large skyscraper in their place, Ivy had quickly made her opinion known. She struck at 3 in the afternoon, Hemlock by her side, the duo making a rare daytime appearance in order to catch the business district at its busiest. It was her first major league crime since she’d taken on a protege months earlier, and was, presumably, Hemlock’s first major foray into true villainy; granted, without the advantage of Ivy’s devastating powers, he played a much smaller role in the chaos. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The damage was devastating, with multimillion-dollar infrastructure losses for both the Drakes and a variety of other local business owners. Worse, there had been casualties in the dozens, and two apartment complexes were caught in the crossfire, leaving hundreds more of Gotham’s citizens without a home. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Things could have been a lot worse-- way, </span>
  <em>
    <span>way </span>
  </em>
  <span>worse, if not for the fact that Batman also made a convenient (albeit even rarer) appearance in the business district during working daytime hours to put a stop to it. Unlike Ivy, however, he flew solo. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Robin’s only fight that day was against a particularly aggravating Algebra II exam, all the way across town.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hemlock scrambled to his feet, his cheeks turning a ruddy red behind his leafy green mask. “The city planners were going to build over the local park! S-someone had to do something!” He spluttered. Robin slowly stood up alongside him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, well, there are these things called “city council meetings” where people can voice opinions about stuff like that. And people were. They were lobbying to get the high rise moved down the block.” Robin spoke lowly as if he were talking down a spooked cat. “It’s an efficient way to get things done </span>
  <em>
    <span>without </span>
  </em>
  <span>civilian casualties, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>without </span>
  </em>
  <span>making people </span>
  <em>
    <span>homeless</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Only if the city council </span>
  <em>
    <span>listens</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Hemlock’s voice raised in pitch and cracked, betraying his age. “Which they never do! They only listen to people with money. And people with money don’t care about anything else </span>
  <em>
    <span>other </span>
  </em>
  <span>than money. Maybe...maybe people that like that deserve what’s coming to them!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Robin’s brow furrowed. “You don’t mean that.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t know what I mean. It’s not like we’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually friends</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Hemlock spit out, throwing his half-eaten granola bar to the ground in anger. He threw a quick look down at it before hastily picking it up and stuffing it in his belt instead. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Robin faltered as a pang of hurt laced through him. “Ouch.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hemlock shuffled on his feet, unsure, before he pulled his fists up in a fighting stance. “Humans don’t take care of the Earth, so why do you have to take care of </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re human.” Robin pointed out, reluctantly following suit by gearing up for a throwdown.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hemlock merely stared at him. “You don’t know anything about me.” Robin opened his mouth to retort but Hemlock cut him off quickly, amending his previous statement. “Not anything important, or real.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The two began to circle each other slowly, both waiting for the other to make the first move. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I know…” Robin took a deep breath, stalling for time. What </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>he know? Favorite movies? Favorite animals? Hemlock was right, those were surface-level tidbits, nothing that really gave insight into the inner workings of someone’s mind. Robin’s mind flickered, unbidden, to Tony Zucco’s case file that he had snooped through in the earliest days of his Robinhood, desperate to know more about his predecessor who, at the time, was still loath to interact with him. He remembered briefly questioning why Dick didn’t just exact his revenge on the man who killed his parents when the opportunity presented itself; he remembered even more clearly the look on Dick’s face when he asked. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Little Wing, for a moment, that’s all I wanted. But then I thought about my parents. Killing him wouldn’t bring them back. And I didn’t want to….I don’t know, dishonor their memory by turning into a murderer on their behalf.” He turned from the window in Jason’s room, where they currently stood, to look his little brother in the eye. “But mostly? I was just. Scared. I felt like I had become a completely different person. I’d prayed for the chance to get my hands on him but once I had the chance, I was just,” he sighed, turning back to the window. “Too scared to do it. I don’t know what of. I can’t...articulate it. I knew my life was about to change forever, whichever choice I made. In the end… I didn’t spare him for Bruce, or for my parents. I spared him for myself.” He tilted his head back, eyes closed, and sighed once more. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Sometimes, Little Wing...even now...I wish that I hadn’t.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hemlock stepped closer to Robin, fire in his eyes, jolting him back to the present. “I know that what happened last week hurt you. You’ve never done anything like that before. You’ve never…” Robin trailed off, not wanting to vocalize his thoughts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’ve never killed anyone before</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His own eyes widened at the realization. He wasn’t entirely clear on what Hemlock’s role in last week’s raid was, except that it was minor. But even then...he had the smallest hand, </span>
  <em>
    <span>a pinky finger</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of responsibility in their deaths. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re only 12.” He blurted out, like the actual absolute moron that he was. The complicated expression that Hemlock was wearing quickly smoothed out in indignation, the kind of anger that only preteens being called out on their ages can muster. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So?! You’re only a year older than I am!” He threw a quick, sloppy punch that was easily dodged by the other.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A year and a half,” He corrected absently, “And in all 13 and a half years, I’ve never killed anyone!” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Before he could even throw a retaliatory punch, Hemlock stumbled back away from him as if he’d been burnt. “I didn’t…”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But you watched. And you didn’t stop her. And you went back home with her afterward! You followed her back onto the streets today!” Robin was well and truly working himself up thinking about it. Hemlock was his </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend</span>
  </em>
  <span>, no matter how he tried to disagree about it; and until last week, things had been absolutely fine between the two of them, both content in their roles as sidekicks. He should have figured that sooner or later, Poison Ivy would return to her eco-fascist ways, regardless of whether or not there was a child in her care. He should have figured that his friend might get indoctrinated in her ways.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“She </span>
  <em>
    <span>gets </span>
  </em>
  <span>me!” Hemlock cried shrilly. “Humans could never understand. She loves me and she protects me! And all humans know how to do is </span>
  <em>
    <span>hate</span>
  </em>
  <span> people, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>destroy </span>
  </em>
  <span>things. The Earth, each other, </span>
  <em>
    <span>their own families!</span>
  </em>
  <span> They’re greedy, and- and </span>
  <em>
    <span>selfish</span>
  </em>
  <span>! They take and take from the Earth, and from others, but they </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>return the favor! You should know that, too! They beg for Batman’s help, but he </span>
  <em>
    <span>scares </span>
  </em>
  <span>them! They hate him! B-because he’s not human, to them, so they don’t understand, they don’t care--”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re </span>
  </em>
  <span>human!” Robin yelled once again, advancing forward.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hemlock’s eyes hardened, his face twisting. “No! I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not!</span>
  </em>
  <span> I’ll</span>
  <em>
    <span> never</span>
  </em>
  <span> be one of you, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t want to be!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” He threw his arms out from his sides forcefully, as if he were throwing something at Robin. Instantly, the asphalt beneath them creaked and quivered, splitting open with a thundering </span>
  <em>
    <span>crack</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Huge, dark, thorny brambles, each as thick around as a basketball, pushed through the surface on either side of Hemlock, shooting up into the air and twining themselves around Robin’s waist before he could so much as blink. Smaller offshoots quickly wrapped around his arms and legs, holding him in place tightly. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The pain was instantaneous, the thorny brambles digging into his skin deeply. His whole body throbbed with pain as blood dripped down his arms from the puncture wounds. As quickly as the brambles had appeared, they seemed to melt away, leaving nothing but the sense memory behind. Hemlock’s horrified face swam in and out of focus, and Robin distantly noted that he had collapsed to the ground. His throat hurt from his ragged screams and his breath came in quick pants.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“-orry! I’m so sorry, Robin, please, I never meant--”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The words drifted in and out of focus as Hemlock ran his hands over the still-bleeding wounds. His vision was blurry around the edges and wholly unfocused as if Robin was looking through an uncleaned pane of glass. Images distorted like a funhouse mirror, and the black of the night sky looked as if it were coming down on him, the darkness swallowing him whole. There was nothing; Hemlock’s devastated face had disappeared, and the thorn pricks on his body became nothing but a soft pang, a phantom touch of the burning fire he had felt mere moments ago. He was drifting, with nothing at all to anchor him to the reality he knew and loved. Everything within him tensed up at the nothingness that surrounded him; he’d learned at a particularly young age that </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>could be lurking in the darkness. He waited in there, in that purgatory, for what felt like an eternity, tensed up in anxious anticipation of something he couldn’t describe nor put a name to. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s when the visions began. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It slammed into him like a freight train. His mother’s face, bruised and beaten, lolling on the armrest of the torn-up couch. Her eyes were vacant but her mouth was open, blood dripping out, dark and viscous. A man was crouched by her feet, hands flittering over her prone body, taking measurements and muttering incomprehensibly under his breath. The man’s head suddenly snapped in Jason’s direction, wide, empty eyes boring into him. The feeling of icy dread increased tenfold as he recognized the Dollmaker, a serial killer he’d helped Batman take down during the beginning of his training. The Dollmaker’s gloved hands were stained red with blood, wrapped around his mother’s ankle in a mock-protective gesture. Despite every instinct screaming in his head, Jason moved closer to the scene and willed himself not to begin hyperventilating. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Suddenly, he was no longer in his tattered and worn out childhood apartment complex. The off-white walls blended and blurred into the grey concrete cinder blocks that made up the entrance to the Dollmaker’s hidden lair. The walls were lined with the Dollmaker’s completed creations-- a multitude of people, </span>
  <em>
    <span>of children</span>
  </em>
  <span>, sliced and stitched into things completely new. His vantage point shifted as he registered that he was strapped to a table, the Dollmaker leaning over him. The lair reeked of rot and decay and the perfume that Jason’s mother had worn exclusively on special occasions like birthdays and Christmas. The closer the Dollmaker leaned, the stronger the mix of smells became. Jason’s hands came up, unbidden, and settled on the patchwork leather mask, slowly peeling it back. Bruce’s empty face stared back at him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>An electric saw buzzed to life, and the world was screaming. Jason was screaming, the creations on the wall were screaming, his mother was screaming. It felt like a decade had passed this way, pain and fear clogging his brain from all other emotions. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He watched as Bruce worked until the darkness closed in, until he sunk through the floor, until he forgot how it felt to be human altogether.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When Jason slowly peeled his eyes open, he was no longer in the lair, or on the street where he had been fighting with Hemlock originally. Instead, he gazed upon the dripping stalactites that littered the high ceiling of the Batcave. Blearily, he wondered if Bruce or Alfred had remembered to feed the bats while he’d been asleep. Probably not. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Jaylad!” Bruce’s frame suddenly filled his vision as he worriedly looked down upon his son. Jason’s mouth dried up and his breath came quicker as the fleeting memory of Bruce’s cold, unflinching stare crossed his mind. Noticing the uptick in Jason’s vitals, he quickly stepped back, his unusually open expression looking hurt. “I’m- </span>
  <em>
    <span>we’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> glad that you’re awake.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Alfred appeared over Bruce’s shoulder, holding a glass of ice water. One of Dick’s old brightly-colored crazy straws stuck out of the top. “Here, Master Jason. Take a sip.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jason reached out and took the glass with shaking hands, cradling it to his chest. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until that very moment. He quickly sucked down half of the glass, only slowly when Bruce gently chided him to slow down. His mentor took a step forward to retrieve the glass but stopped abruptly at Jason’s full-bodied flinch. He stepped back, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll...give you a minute alone.” Bruce turned to leave the curtained-off section of the cave that served as the infirmary. He glanced back at his son. “I really am glad you’re okay, Jason. I was...worried about you, for a minute there.” He paused, as if he wanted to say more, but ultimately turned back around and stepped beyond the curtain. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going to update Hemlock’s file.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Jason's vision is of his mother being hurt by the Dollmaker, and then he himself being hurt by the Dollmaker. Halfway through the vision, he removes the Dollmaker's mask and realizes it's Bruce hurting him. He wakes up in the cave, but flinches at Bruce's presence due to the vision. Bruce says that he's going to go update Hemlock's file.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for like a month...accept 6.5k of nonsense as an apology?<br/>thank u ms. trashcan for catching my stupid continuity errors</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After “The Hemlock Incident”, as Bruce and Dick came to call it, things were different all around. Being around Bruce was difficult, especially in that first month. Jason knew that what he’d seen wasn’t real, and he knew that Bruce loved him like a son, in his own, fucked-up and emotionally constipated way. But it was hard to reconcile that feeling with the things his brain had tricked him into thinking he’d seen. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was one thing to know, and another thing to </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you know?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce and Alfred had taken turns drawing blood samples from Jason’s shaking arms, trying to find any traces of the toxin in his system, and trying to piece together how it had gotten there in the first place. A few days after Jason had woken from what Alfred had informed him was a nearly 24-hour </span>
  <em>
    <span>coma</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Bruce finally sat Jason down and tiredly explained how he had come to find him. According to Bruce, as he had been in the process of apprehending Ivy, a tiny, minute rumble had rolled across the ground. Initially, Bruce had thought nothing of it, but Ivy had gone still and quiet as if she knew something had happened. The slight static white noise that the communicators they wore went out as if it had been destroyed (it had). Faint screams rang out, and that combined with the prospect of not being able to contact Jason had freaked Bruce out enough that he had dropped a semi-handcuffed Ivy on the ground and ran towards the last place he knew Jason and Hemlock to have been, just a few streets away. When he got there, Hemlock had been cradling Jason in his arms, looking absolutely devastated. He was crying out apologies and trying to drag him out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Jason was covered in bloody welts and scrapes, completely unconscious except for the bloodcurdling howls he let out. The asphalt around them was cracked and crushed. Bruce had immediately snatched Jason out of Hemlock’s arms and summoned the Batmobile to their location. In the minute it took for the car to arrive, he’d focused all of his attention on his young son writhing in agony, completely ignoring the sobbing, snot-nosed child on the sidewalk. He sent a message to Alfred to prep the infirmary and, as soon as the Batmobile pulled up, hastily put his son in the backseat and let autopilot take control. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jason stared at his mentor. “And you didn’t think to ask him what had happened?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s a villain. It was obvious to me what had happened.” Bruce had replied flatly, evading Jason’s eyes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You just said he was crying and apologizing,” Jason said, thinking back to before the visions had begun. “I remember that, too.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce hummed, attention refocused on the Batcomputer. Jason felt as though Bruce was trying way too hard to be casual about this conversation. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s trying to cover up his mistakes. He should’ve questioned Hemlock, but he was too worried about me to do his job.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jason thought, a small grin forming on his face. His grin softened as he realized, </span>
  <em>
    <span>He was worried about me</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Another, darker part of his mind whispered that Bruce had tried to cut him apart. Jason pointedly ignored it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Nope. Didn’t happen. Not real. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He swallowed hard anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Now that you’re a little more...cognizant, I’d like you to try and think of what happened back there.” Bruce looked back over at his protege. Jason’s smile fell completely and he looked down at his lap. He was a little blurry on the details himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We were fighting. I mean, obviously, we were like, hitting each other or whatever, but like. Uh. Fighting with words. Arguing?” Jason stumbled over his words. The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked so fast that Jason thought he might have imagined it. “And I, uh. I called him a murderer. He was upset and he…” Jason trailed off, his brows furrowing. “He summoned vines, I think. Like Ivy, but also not like Ivy at all. It was all thorns and brambles. They were dark and dead looking and hard like twigs.” He absentmindedly rubbed at his still bandaged wrists. “They got around me and, well, you know the rest.” He threw a quick glance at his mentor and was almost taken aback by the severe look on his face. There was no trace of Bruce there; he was all Batman now. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you know he was capable of that?” His eyes were piercing; there was no way that Jason could lie, even if he wanted to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Luckily, he didn’t have to. “No.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce turned back to the Batcomputer to gaze at Hemlock’s open file. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he inputted the new information. A rumble started from across the room as the Nightbird roared into the cave, skidding to a stop by the Batmobile. Bruce glanced over with a disapproving scowl. “Coming in a little bit hot there, Dick.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, B!” Dick called back, pulling off his helmet and shaking out his hair. He strode over to join the duo by the computer, putting his hands on the back of Jason’s chair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So far, “The Hemlock Incident” hadn’t had a lot of upsides, but Dick’s presence in Gotham was definitely one of them. By hour ten of 24, Alfred had rung Dick to let him know that Jason was “</span>
  <em>
    <span>indisposed”</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Apparently, Dick had dropped everything to come back home, arriving just about an hour before Jason woke. For the last few days, he and Bruce had teamed back up, not only to pick up Robin’s slack, but mostly to prowl the streets looking for either Ivy or her protege. So far, they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the duo; they’d gone underground the moment that Batman had taken Robin back to the cave. Street cameras positioned down the block had been obscured by dust and smoke at the time of the initial “attack”, but it had cleared up enough eventually to show the aftermath. Ivy had scooped up her own sidekick before the Batmobile’s tail lights had even disappeared, and together they fled the scene. The CCTV footage was grainy enough that Jason couldn’t make out the details of Hemlock’s face, but he could definitely read his body language. Hemlock looked as though </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>had been the one to get injured. </span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>Jason didn’t actually know how he felt about everything that had happened. Despite Hemlock’s earlier words, Jason had felt a real, true connection between the two of them, and he knew that Hemlock had to have felt it too. They were </span><em><span>friends</span></em><span>. Well, at least, they </span><em><span>had</span></em> <em><span>been </span></em><span>friends. Privately, Jason had even thought of them as potentially a...closer connection than that. Hemlock’s shy, private smile when Jason brandished a candy bar from out of his utility belt for them to share? It nearly took his breath away. When their gloved fingers made contact? It made Jason feel a teensy bit lightheaded. When Hemlock sat close enough on the edge of the rooftop that their arms brushed and their thighs were pushed against each other for hours? It made Jason’s stomach roil and turn enough to make him puke, but like, in a </span><em><span>good </span></em><span>way. And from the way that Hemlock occasionally snuck glances at Robin from the corner of his eye, his cheeks flushed a darker green than usual, Jason had almost hoped to guess that Hemlock might have felt the same way too. </span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was part of the reason that Jason had felt so terrible when Alfred came to pick him up from school last week, a somber look upon his face as he recounted Ivy and Hemlock’s attack on the ride home. Jason hadn’t seen Hemlock as a threat, not the same way that Bruce and even Dick had seen him. Jason had only pretended to fight him, had felt that he understood Hemlock better than his mentor ever could, and had secretly befriended him instead. It felt crushing to know that he was wrong about the other boy. Having to admit that Bruce might have been right all along...that might have been the worst feeling in the world. That night, as he sat in bed, the evening’s newscast replaying the day’s fatality count in his head, he’d let silent tears fall. He didn’t know how to face Hemlock, knowing what he’d done, and he didn’t know how to face Bruce, knowing that he’d hidden and protected parts of Hemlock that he shouldn’t have. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But still, he hadn’t been ready nor willing to give up on his friend that easily. Hemlock’s involvement might’ve been a mistake, or maybe even a misunderstanding. He’d been present; that much had been confirmed by various news crews. But he couldn’t create the overwhelming devastation that Ivy could. That’s why when the duo finally resurfaced a week later, Jason was aching to talk to his friend and address it. The minute that Batman and Robin had touched down on the same rooftop that Ivy and Hemlock had occupied, Jason noted that the atmosphere was extra charged, the air around them heavy with tension. Ivy had shot a vine at Batman straight away, and the two youngest of the group had vaulted off of the roof to the street, slowly and silently making their way away from the eyes of their mentors. Hemlock was more subdued than usual, not responding to Robin’s pokes and jabs as he usually would; the jokes fell flat, anyway. Robin couldn’t see Hemlock’s eyes through the leafy domino he wore, but his shoulders looked heavy, and his usually soft, pale mint skin looked a little more olive toned. He looked guilty...but he’d defended Ivy, and defended her choices. In the end, he hadn’t been sorry; he’d doubled down, hadn’t he?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin had been hit by delirium pretty quickly after the brambled thorn attack, but he swore that Hemlock had looked positively wrecked. He’d apologized </span>
  <em>
    <span>then</span>
  </em>
  <span>, for hurting Jason. Jason knew it looked bad. But he really believed...well, he knew that </span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever </span>
  </em>
  <span>it is that Hemlock had done, </span>
  <em>
    <span>however </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d managed to do it, it had been an accident. He just needed to convince everyone else of that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No sign of them tonight, either.” Dick ruffled Jason’s hair, snapping him out of his reverie. “It’s only been three days, and two since Little Wing woke up. I’m not surprised.” He stretched his arms out behind it, cracking his neck to the side. He’d been out on the streets for hours. “Batgirl called, though. She can join us tomorrow night.” Barbara had spent the last week </span>
  <em>
    <span>grounded</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of all things. And while she was no stranger to sneaking out, she had actually decided to take advantage of the forced spare time to put a little more effort into catching up on schoolwork; incidentally, the reason she’d been grounded in the first place. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>God, Jason was grateful that he’d had the foresight to knock out an entire semester’s worth of essays during his first week of school. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sue him, he liked a good literary analysis. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I can join you guys.” Jason offered up, turning to Bruce with a hesitantly hopeful expression. Bruce had been reluctant to clear him for active duty, as the analysis of the toxins hadn’t yet come back conclusively.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bruce frowned at him in disapproval and a small tingle went down Jason’s spine as another unwitting memory of the visions flickered in his mind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, B. He’s probably going stir crazy.” Dick knocked his shoulder, turning a private smile to his younger brother. Of everyone else in the world, Dick was the only other person who knew what it was like to live in the Bat’s overprotective shadow. The two boys turned pleading eyes towards Bruce.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take long for his resolve to crack. “Fine. You can do a </span>
  <em>
    <span>half </span>
  </em>
  <span>patrol </span>
  <em>
    <span>tomorrow</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But you have to go to bed early tonight and get some extra rest.” Bruce huffed out, standing up to his full height. Jason tried to hide his glee at the prospect, readily agreeing to the terms and watching as Dick and Bruce made their way to the Batmobile for one last sweep of the city.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jason knew that it was a futile effort; they wouldn’t be finding their plant based adversaries tonight. But tomorrow-- tomorrow Jason would be back in the fray, right by their sides. If he knew Hemlock-- and Jason </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>know him, no matter what anyone else thought-- he and Ivy weren’t likely to be completely underground. They probably had an eye and an ear out for Robin’s wellbeing, and once he was seen back on the street, they’d probably pop back up too. If not late tomorrow night, then the day after, surely.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They didn’t pop back up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It took an entire month for word of activity near Robinson Park to start back up. It worried Jason sick, to be honest. He didn’t know how Hemlock was, physically or emotionally. Jason didn’t even know how </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was, physically or emotionally. The only thing he did know was that he wanted-- no, </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed-- </span>
  </em>
  <span>to see his friend again. Just to talk. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And one month and a week to the date of the “incident”, he finally got his chance. Batman had finally fallen back into the old pattern of letting Robin “do his own thing”, provided he stayed within a 6 block radius of Batman’s location and he wasn’t needed at a large scale bust or a Rogue altercation. It was their compromise; a way to give Jason a sense of independence and a tentative, hopeful step towards one day running his own solo patrols. Jason knew it was part of Bruce’s attempts to right the wrongs of days (and Robins) past, but it benefitted him anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Especially today. Robin had been teetering on the edge of a low hanging rooftop, debating on whether or not to push his luck by moving another block away from Bruce, when he felt the prickling on the back of his neck that usually signified someone’s stare. He spun around to face the alleyway, expecting a fan, or at worst, a low level thug, but instead almost fell off the roof when he met eyes with Hemlock. He was partially obscured by shadow by a nearby dumpster, looking conflicted as all get out. Robin scrambled down from his perch, dropping into the alley.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hemlock!” He nearly shouted, and then felt himself turn beet red in embarrassment for yelping like an over eager puppy. His lips turned up in an unconscious smile that Hemlock didn’t return. In fact, he looked uncomfortable. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Robin.” He murmured, shifting his weight and looking down at his feet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you, I haven’t seen you in ages!” Robin shuffled his feet, his momentary excitement turning to unease, taking on the mood of the somber boy in front of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’ve</span>
  </em>
  <span> been worried about </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Hemlock laughed, high pitched and squeaky. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I almost killed you!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nah. You got me pretty good, but you’re not quite on my level yet.” Robin joked hollowly. He sighed. “I’m serious, though. I’m fine. I’m confused as hell though. What...what happened back there? And…” He swallowed and looked steadfastly at the bricks behind Hemlock’s head, carefully avoiding his gaze. “....did you..” He trailed off. He couldn’t ask it, couldn’t bear to hear the answer one way or the other. It hung unsaid in the air, but he knew that Hemlock knew what it implied. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Did you do it on purpose?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Robin.” Hemlock stepped forward, trying desperately to catch Robin’s eye. He put out his hand as if to touch Robin’s shoulder, but hesitated halfway, as if he weren’t sure that the touch would be welcome. After a moment’s pause, he finally put his gloved hand gently on Robin’s arm. “I never, ever, </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever </span>
  </em>
  <span>meant to hurt you. I’m so, </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>sorry.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin deflated the moment Hemlock touched him. All of his weariness faded into the back of his mind; still there, still important, but not as important as the boy in front of him. “I know that. I..I knew that then, too. I just...you won’t talk to me. I didn’t even know that you could…” In all of the time that the boys had spent together, in all of the inane, meaningless topics that they’d covered, the details of how Hemlock had generally come to be had never really come up. Robin had tried, at first, to pry it out of the other boy, but learned quickly that Hemlock clammed up pretty fast when the discussion turned to parents, family, or other general “backstory” details. Fair enough; he was a masked vigilante/villain, and it wasn’t like Robin had much room to talk. He hid his identity under lock and key too. Besides, it was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. He may not have known Hemlock’s name, but he knew who Hemlock was, at his core. Or so he’d thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock’s face scrunched up as if he were in pain, his eyebrows furrowing. “I have a...hard time controlling it. I don’t do it a lot. I don’t like to do it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What is “it”, exactly?” Jason asked. The toxicology report had come back rather inconclusive; however, there were similarities there to a certain handful of strains of fear gas. In the end, the sequence had gotten a brand new spanking label attributed to Hemlock’s name alone. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The vines. I can-- I can grow them like Ivy can grow hers. But usually only when I get upset. Like I said, I’m not good at it, not yet. Ivy says that I can be, if I practice. But it’s...hard to practice it. She can’t really help me with it. They’re...different from hers.” Hemlock said, chewing his bottom lip apprehensively. Robin struggled momentarily to not fix his gaze to the movement.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No shit.” He snorted. “Br- Batman’s never seen anything like it, either.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Batman saw them?!” Hemlock snapped to attention, his the white lens of his domino widening.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, no. I went through some of his old case files, afterward. Just to check. I didn’t really have an explanation for what happened, so I thought that maybe I could find one there.” Robin awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock looked off into the distance, groaning. He shouldered past Robin to look into the opening of the alleyway. “Christ, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Batman</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He probably </span>
  <em>
    <span>hates </span>
  </em>
  <span>me now.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He doesn’t hate you. He’s, well, he’s not necessarily a fan? At this point in time? But he doesn’t hate you. He knows, well, he suspects that it was an accident.” Robin wasn’t actually that certain of that last bit; Batman had seemed a little convinced that Hemlock had finally turned the corner into full-blown villainy. Perhaps if Hemlock hadn’t just helped conspire to blow up downtown Gotham, the Bat might’ve been more willing to see Robin’s attack as a one-off. Robin winced at the thought of the downtown debacle. He hadn’t forgotten about it, not by a long shot, but he was hesitant to breach the topic again, seeing as how it had ended for him last time. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He has every right to hate me.” Hemlock whispered quietly. Robin studied the back of Hemlock’s head, desperately wishing he could see his expression. “What I did was...unforgivable.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I forgive you.” It slipped out before Robin really had a chance to think about it, and was slightly startled to find that it was entirely true. He did forgive Hemlock. The attack left Jason living with ghosts for weeks, constantly seeing the Dollmaker from the corner of his eye, hearing his mother whisper in his ears. It had put a strain on his relationship with Bruce, too, momentarily decimating all of the paternal affection that Jason had harbored for the man. He had just begun to see himself as maybe becoming a permanent fixture in the Wayne family, and then spent weeks refusing to turn his back to Bruce. He was over it, now, more or less. It had shaken him to the core, but it had been weeks since his last nightmare, and he felt comfortable meeting Bruce’s eyes and even giving in to his embraces. No permanent damage had been done. “You might think it’s unforgivable. But I forgive you anyway. The only person who doesn’t forgive you is </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And Batman.” Hemlock tacked on after a moment, turning back to finally meet Robin’s eyes again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And Batman.” Robin echoed, a whisper of a fond smile on his face. He knew Hemlock harbored a bit of hero worship for his mentor, deny it though he did. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The boys stood in silence, just looking at each other. Observing. Robin took a sudden step forward, pulling Hemlock into his arms and into a hug. Hemlock hugged him back desperately, finally allowing the few tears that had pooled in his eyes to slip down and land on his friend’s shoulder. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They clung to each other there, in that dingy alleyway, surrounded by filth and rot and filled with warring affection and sorrow. Robin felt the solid warmth of his friend pressed against him and noted distantly that the low swooping in his gut that always followed his interactions with Hemlock had returned. It was a familiar ache, and for the first time in months, he truly felt grounded.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Years passed this way. Robin grew older and grew away from his denoted sidekick role-- by the time he was 15, he was regularly taking Bat-approved solo patrols with limited tracking and monitoring from the Bat himself. He staked his claim on the outskirts of the crime-ridden streets of the Bowery, much to Bruce’s chagrin. Bruce had put his foot down firmly against the idea of Jason patrolling alone in the middle of the rundown area, but. Well. The border streets were as good of a starting point as any place. The locals were pretty jaded when it came to the Gotham vigilantes, but they soon came to feel affection for the brightly colored young teen who patrolled their streets, protecting the working girls from over-eager Johns and looking out for the harried convenience store workers trying to earn a living. He was still forbidden from taking on any gang bigwigs or members of the Rogues Gallery, but that was plenty alright with him. Jason wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could outsmart/outmuscle/outmaneuver someone like Black Mask. It didn’t bother him too much anyway; he wanted to keep an eye on the little guy that so often got overlooked. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock grew up too, as Dick often reminded him with a leering grin away from Bruce’s earshot. It had been years, but Bruce was still sore to the teen who had once harmed his son, even if it hadn’t happened since. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jason couldn’t help but blushingly admit that it was true. Hemlock had grown up lithe and lean, retaining the overall slim build he’d had as a child sidekick. But his shoulders had filled out and he held himself straighter, more sure of himself and his abilities. He was steadily losing the baby fat in his cheeks and Jason swore his eyes grew more piercing by the day, hidden by his domino mask as they were.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By all accounts, he was a force to be reckoned with these days, and, like Jason himself, only growing stronger by the day. Now that Jason was old enough to identify and stealthily discard any sort of tracking and monitoring device, paired with his ability to patrol alone, he found himself in the presence of his old friend more often than not. They had met in secret hundreds of times over the past few years, away from their mentors. In alleys, on rooftops, and in abandoned warehouses away from prying eyes, they grew closer. Hemlock regaled his friend with tales of he and Ivy’s slow moving training with his “gift”-- he still wasn’t fully comfortable with it yet, and constantly turned down Robin’s request for an in-person demonstration.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Demonstration? You’ve already given a whole new meaning to ‘up close and personal’!” Hemlock replied after the first time Robin had asked. Robin had laughed at the bewildered expression on his friend’s face, and was secretly relieved that they had finally reached a point where he could joke about “the incident” without Hemlock’s eyes tearing up in the corners.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In return, Robin would tell (only slightly exaggerated) stories about his successful missions with the Batman. However, those stories could get dicey at times-- he would be halfway through a long-winded rant about the latest bust by the docks before remembering that it ended with a spectacular showdown between the Dynamic Duo and Two-Face. Two-Face, who ran with Ivy from time to time and starred as a pseudo-uncle in Hemlock’s life. Robin would trail off suddenly, rapidly fabricating a new ending to the story that involved some nameless mobster-wannabe, but both of the boys knew how the story was meant to end. In those moments, while Robin grasped at straws so as to not upset his friend, a fleeting look of sadness and guilt would flash across Hemlock’s face. It hung between the two afterwards, silent and unspoken, but heavy in the air nevertheless. It served as a stark reminder that the boys came from two seperate places-- fought on two seperate sides of the same war. Whatever momentary truce the boys had found in each other did not translate to the world beyond the rotting and peeling warehouse walls. Batman didn’t trust Hemlock and he actively pursued Ivy. And for good reason; after the brief hiatus following “the Incident”, Ivy had fully resumed her villainous agenda. Murder included. Hemlock never directly helped, as far as the Bats knew. He never delivered the killing blow. But it was a near-thing more often than not, and he most certainly turned his head as she enacted her vendetta against the human race. At the end of the day, he was considered by the general populace to have just as much blood on his hands as his mentor, despite his age.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’d done a pretty remarkable job of avoiding the topic over the years, if Robin did say so himself. He hesitated to fully grill Hemlock over his actions after the way it had turned out last year, and Hemlock seemed to have just enough of a guilty conscience to not bring up that particular subject himself. But the rift between them was ever present, and, from time to time, it felt impossible to avoid.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What kind of tough guy beats up on a bunch of kids, anyway?” Hemlock grit out, looking deliberately over Robin’s shoulder to avoid his gaze.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Literally every criminal that I’ve ever encountered.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Robin bit back his retort-- he wasn’t necessarily a child anymore, but Gotham’s underbelly had never bothered to pull their punches when he first hopped onto the scene. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I get it, Hemlock. Believe me.” Robin’s old man hadn’t been around more than a few cumulative weeks throughout his youth, but when he was. Well. There was a reason that he knew evasive maneuvers even before Batman had taken him in. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Women, too. He hit his girlfriend, and his ex, and probably his ex before that too.” Hemlock rubbed his gloved hand against his cheek. The blood splattered across his cheekbone had dried into rust-colored flakes. Robin tried not to think about the fact that the man it belonged to, Robert Gloward, was lying lifeless on a metal slab with a thorn-slashed throat, courtesy of Ivy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin couldn’t find it in himself to really leap to the man in question’s defense. He might currently be sleeping in a king sized bed, but no amount of silken sheets could erase the fact that for most of his life he had slept on a bed bug ridden twin sized mattress that he shared with his mother. He knew how rough it could be on the streets of Gotham, and he knew that men like Robert Gloward only made life harder. They might eventually go to jail, but never for long. Batman and Robin might shatter his hand in the takedown process, but broken bones heal, and before long, that very same hand would go back to tormenting whatever poor young woman and/or child depended on him for shelter. Eventually, that child would grow up with the same hardened heart, and the cycle would repeat itself. Robin knew that. He knew it first hand. Sometimes, “the mission” seemed so pointless in the face of a justice system that looked out only for itself. But anytime the Duo could put a bad man away for life, could make his day to day life droll and miserable behind bars, it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>worth it.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>were protecting those kids. And those women. But was that what </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>was doing?” Robin couldn’t help but press the issue, despite the voice in his mind screaming at him to let it go.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that was the root of the issue. Robin knew that Ivy didn’t know about Robert Gloward’s past with domestic violence. She knew him as a man that had dumped a pan of used oil from an oil change into a nearby bush. The fact that he was a genuinely rotten person was sheer dumb luck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock said nothing. What was left to say?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The boys had sat in terse silence until Robin was paged away for a bank robbery across town. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So, yeah. It wasn’t all roses and sunshine. But so long as they continued to seek each other out, despite their differences,  it was close enough.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, double chocolate or peanut butter? And no, you can’t have both.” Robin announced as he crawled through the partially opened window. He felt a light blush dust his cheeks at the sight that greeted him. Hemlock was perched on top of a large crate, his long, slender legs kicking as he laid back on his elbows, eyes closed. At the sound of his friend’s arrival, he sat up slowly, catlike in the way he stretched his arms above his head. Robin discreetly coughed and looked away, willing his face to go back to its normal shade. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Rob. Double chocolate or get out.” He smirked, hopping off of his makeshift seat, sending dust motes floating around. Robin dug around in his utility belt and pulled out a plastic baggie with two crumbling, semi-smushed cookies inside. He flung it at Hemlock wordlessly, but the other boy snatched it out of the air effortlessly. “Are these homemade?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Duh. What, Ivy doesn’t bake for you?” Robin smirked, walking past his friend to lean against the rusty railing that separated the loft from the abandoned warehouse floor below. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>wish</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Harley went on this baking kick once, though, a few months ago. Actually, it was less of a kick and more of a hyperfixation. If I ever see a bran muffin again, it’ll be too soon.” Hemlock gave an exaggerated shudder as he ripped open the plastic and shoved the cookie unceremoniously into his mouth. “‘Ey, these ‘re pre-ey goodf.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Robin said without thinking, and immediately blushed. He was parroting Alfred’s near-constant reprimand. He snatched the extra cookie away. “Get your grubby hands away from my cookie.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock let it go without a fight. Peanut butter wasn’t a favorite by a longshot. “What’s the special occasion? Or do you always get freshly baked goods? Have you been holding out on me?” Usually, they would share some prepackaged artificial shit from a nearby convenience store-- the sort of sugar-filled, cheese dusted plastic garbage that would make Alfred keel over in sheer offense. Robin didn’t get it often anymore, and he sincerely doubted that Hemlock ate that kind of stuff with Ivy. He privately thought of it as their own little tradition-- spending a dollar fifty on normal kid junk food. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Wait a second, did Batman make these?” Hemlock whipped his head around to stare at his friend, eyes wide. “Batcookies?” A crumb tumbled from the corner of his mouth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin laughed. “No, it was A-...someone else.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock joined him at the rail, looking down into the darkness below. Robin could feel his body heat-- it made his stomach feel warm and gooey, that his friend was so close.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So? Special occasion?” He prompted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, ah…” Robin trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. The truth was that it actually was a special occasion. Jason was turning 16 next week. A matter of days, really. And after Bruce and Alfred had realized that Jason hadn’t really celebrated his first 13 birthdays, they had made an unspoken pact to semi-celebrate for the week leading up to the day itself in an overcompensating bid to make Jason feel extra special. (Admittedly, it worked, a little bit. More than a little bit. Whatever, Jason liked cookies and attention.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The problem was, as the son of a local celebrity, Jason’s birthday was public knowledge. He sincerely doubted that many people cared enough to keep track of that sort of thing. He wasn’t Bruce’s first kid, and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>wasn’t the most well-liked or well-known of the family. But if he told Hemlock that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Robin’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>16th birthday was coming, and then he realized that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jason’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>16th birthday was </span>
  <em>
    <span>also </span>
  </em>
  <span>coming...well, he would know. Hemlock was smart like that. Sometimes, he looked at Jason like he knew him, like he saw who Jason was behind the mask. It was equal parts flattering and unnerving. A double-birthday wouldn’t slide past him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As usual, Hemlock seemed to understand Robin without a single word. “Oh, gotcha.” He took another large bite from his cookie. “Secret special occasion. That’s cool. So long as you bring me more of these cookies tomorrow, I won’t pry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s bribery.” Robin laughed, lightly shoulder checking his friend. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>blackmail</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Hemlock shoved back, with a blinding smile on his face. They locked eyes for a moment before he tore his eyes away biting his lip. “But say that...theoretically...it’s a special day. An anniversary of sorts. Perhaps even...an anniversary of a birth?” He looked back at Robin, eyes twinkling with mischief. “It would be...theoretically….a trip around the sun. How many trips would it be? Theoretically.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck it</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Robin thought. “It might be...maybe...allegedly...the sixteenth rotation.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If it was even possible, Hemlock’s smile got even wider, showing off his teeth. “Congratulations!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin felt blinded in the wake of that smile. It was dizzying. Literally. “Congratulations? I didn’t do anything.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You survived.” Hemlock slid closer, so that their sides were pressed against each other. “That’s a lot more than some other people can say.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin considered it for a moment. That was true; he had lived another year, which was a feat in and of itself, plus he was in considerably more danger than most other people. “Huh. I guess so.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t guess so. Know so.” Despite being pressed against each other, Hemlock seemed to be trying his hardest to look in any other direction than Robin’s. “What are you gonna wish for?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know.” He really didn’t. “I have pretty much everything that I want right now.” That was also true. After growing up in extreme poverty, wanting excess material things didn’t really come naturally to him. But what little he did desire was usually fairly accessible, if not with Bruce’s money, then with Bruce’s family name. And beyond the material, he was pretty much set. He had a father, a brother, and grandfather, a best friend. Barbara and Jim. A support system that he was finally deciding and trusting to lean on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good.” Hemlock said softly, pulling Jason out of his thoughts. “You deserve to have nice things.” It was slightly more than a whisper.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You think so?” Robin matched his tone, as if they were exchanging a quiet secret.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know so.” Hemlock finally turned his face to look at Robin head on. He looked up at Jason through his eyelashes. “You’re a good guy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You are too.” Robin breathed out, eyes roving over his friend's face. His leafy domino, his high cheekbones. His whole body flushed warm at the sight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not like you. I’ve...hurt people. I’ve done bad things.” Hemlock looked away, twinging with guilt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Doing bad things doesn’t make you a bad person.” Robin said softly, reaching out slowly. His knuckles brushed Hemlock’s cheek, tilting it back to reestablish eye contact.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stared at each other. The hand still on Hemlock’s jaw unfurled until Robin’s palm was holding his cheek. His chest felt tight with tension.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He ducked his head and leaned in, pressing his lips softly to Hemlock’s in the world’s most chaste kiss before pulling back slightly. He didn’t make it far before Hemlock pushed forward to reconnect their lips. The hand cupping Hemlock's cheek pressed down harder as their lips collided with slightly more force. It was still simple, still sweet, the way that their lips slid against each other, drinking each other in. Hemlock’s own gloved hand came up to latch on to the back of Robin’s neck as he leaned in further, opening his mouth as the kiss grew deeper. Robin’s spare hand settled on Hemlock’s back as he pushed him closer, until their bodies were nearly pressed together. The drag of Hemlock’s lips on his own set every one of Jason’s nerves on fire. His stomach clenched and dropped low. His cheeks felt simultaneously hot and cold. Every coherent thought flew out the window-- all he knew was the pricking sensation on his skin and the burning heat on his tongue.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hemlock broke off the kiss, but pressed their foreheads together, gasping for breath. He moved to dive back in, but Robin swayed slightly. Hemlock’s lips landed on the corner of Robin’s mouth. He pulled back to look up at him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Robin’s lips were parted, his eyes hooded and glassy. “Wow.” He breathed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes rolled back and he careened backwards onto the floor. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>tumblr @snakepitnakki<br/>drop a comment to ensure my fealty forever</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's been a while...please accept 13k as an apology.</p><p>drop me a line on Tumblr @snakepitnakki :) </p><p>let's scream in the comments</p><p>thanks, @anordinarytrashcan!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jason blinked awake to the sound of silence. An ordinary person might argue that there was no such thing, but as a vigilante had who trained under the Batman himself, Jason knew better. The silence as he waited in the rafters of a villain’s hideout, prolonging his movements until the correct moment-- <em> that </em>silence had the kind of high-ringing noise that made his head ache. The disappointed silence that befell the Duo when Jason slipped up and let a criminal escape the scene of a crime-- that was accompanied by the tightness in his chest and the heavy weight of his mentor’s glower; it made his stomach sink low. There was a comfortable silence, too; the kind that sat in the air as Bruce read the newspaper at breakfast while Jason made the toast. The kind that wrapped around Jason like a blanket as he sat shoulder to shoulder with Hemlock on the edge of a skyscraper, looking out at the bustle of Gotham’s nightlife below them. It was an easy silence that held no weight at all. </p><p>This was decidedly not that sort of silence. It was wrought with tension, as though any sudden movement would set off a cacophony of unpleasant noise. As if someone had been yelling, and the wrong movement would send that same person over the edge again.</p><p>He slid his eyes over to the foot of his bed and found the culprit. <em> Bruce. Obviously</em>. </p><p>“Hey, B.” He murmured. “Whassup?” </p><p>The hand that Bruce had wrapped around his ankle tightened. “Robin.” He said tersely. Jason looked back, waiting for more, but Bruce stayed silent, as though he had a lot he wanted to say, but at the same time, didn’t want to say anything at all.</p><p>“Oh.” A voice squeaked from across the room. “I-Is he awake?” Jason immediately recognized the Hemlock’s voice, but he’d never heard it sound so meek. Jason quickly pulled himself into an upright position, craning his neck to see his friend, but all he saw was the curtains of the makeshift medbay. His sudden movement caused bursts of pain behind his eyes, and his brain felt like nothing more than a big ball of cotton. </p><p>Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and he retracted his hand. “Stay.” He ordered. Jason felt the urge to get up and defy Bruce on nothing more than principle, but the wooziness he felt made him decide otherwise. Bruce-- still wearing the costume and cowl-- stepped away from the bed and disappeared beyond the curtains. </p><p>Jason strained his ears to try to make out the voices beyond. He could hear the deep timbre of Bruce’s voice and the softer tones of Hemlock (<em>who was here! In the Batcave, of all places! </em>). They spoke lowly, no doubt to ensure Jason stayed put in bed rather than join in on the conversation. </p><p>It wouldn’t have mattered anyway-- by the time Bruce’s voice raised a few audible octaves, sleep was already pulling Jason back under.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Do we have to have this conversation right <em> now?</em>” Jason griped, stabbing his spoon back into his bowl of semi-mushy cornflakes. If he was lucky, there might be enough milk left to drown himself in.</p><p>The vein above Bruce’s left eyebrow twitched, and Jason hid his smile behind another bite. Bruce cut a rather imposing figure in the large wingback chair, the light of the Batcomputer’s monitor sharpening his silhouette. He looked angry, stressed, and tired. Jason knew the feeling well.</p><p>“Just when, exactly, do you think is the appropriate time for this conversation, then? Should we put it on hold until that boy poisons you <em>again</em> and brings you in here unconscious for a <em>third time</em>?” The words were sharp and biting, and Jason felt himself bristling in defense.</p><p>“It was an accident Bruce, Jesus! He obviously didn’t mean to do it or he wouldn’t have bothered calling you in the first place.” </p><p>“Once? Once, I’ll grant you. But twice? Twice is either deliberate action or sheer stupidity on both of your parts.” The glower Bruce was wearing could’ve cut glass. “I <em> ordered </em>you to stay away from Hemlock. He’s an unknown and dangerous variable--”</p><p>“Oh, <em> please</em>.” Jason cut in, shoving his bowl away from him. The milk sloshed over the sides and onto the computer’s keyboard, making Bruce’s face even stormier. “If he was that dangerous, why’d you let him in the cave, huh?”</p><p>“I didn’t <em> let </em> him anywhere. He <em> appeared </em> here, dragging your <em> unconscious body</em>, which, by the way, was <em> foaming at the mouth </em>--”</p><p>“It was an <em> accident! </em>You weren’t even there!” Jason cut in again, throwing his hands up into the air. </p><p>Bruce scoffed. “Yeah, and thank god for that. Hemlock gave me all of the details about your little “accident”. What the hell were you thinking? Poison notwithstanding, that boy is a <em> villain </em> in his own right. He is a <em> murderer</em>. I can’t believe we have to even discuss this, Jason.” His tone was heavy with shadowy disappointment, making Jason’s stomach sink like lead even as his cheeks heated up in embarrassment.</p><p>He knew, objectively, that Hemlock had had to disclose exactly how Jason came to be unconscious if he’d ever wanted to leave the Cave without handcuffs on. Jason still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d managed to evade arrest; Hemlock had been gone when Jason had reawoken, and he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to ask Bruce, lest he open up this exact line of questioning.</p><p>Still, his urge to duck and hide his face in embarrassment was at war with his desire to stand up and defend his-- friend? Boyfriend seemed a bit presumptuous, but risking life and limb for a kiss seemed a little bit over the line of friendship.</p><p>“He’s not this evil megalomaniac or whatever! You’ve built up this idea of him in your head but you don’t even know him! I know him! He’s a good person; I don’t know why you can’t see that!” Jason protested, clenching his fists at his side. </p><p>“You don’t have to be a criminal mastermind to be a murderer, Jason!” Bruce insisted, standing up swiftly. “I thought I’d made this clear to you. I didn’t even think you needed this reminder. I thought you were smarter than this. Clearly, I was wrong.” He turned his back on Jason, facing the monitor. “Maybe it’s my fault. I knew you’d developed some sort of... affection for him, but I really thought you’d learned your lesson last time. But you’re still just a child.”</p><p>Jason shot to his feet as well, shoving at Bruce’s shoulder in an attempt to make him turn back around. Bruce shrugged off Jason’s shoves like he couldn’t even feel them, which only made Jason angrier. “Fine! You want to pull the “child” card, then Hemlock’s just a kid too! And you’re over here talking about him like he’s some kind of irredeemable criminal! It’s not like you have room to talk, anyway. I’ve spent more than one night kicking rocks on a rooftop while you “apprehended” Catwoman somewhere nearby.” Jason spat out with as much vitriol as he could muster. Somewhere over his shoulder, Dick made a noise of assent from where he sat on the training mats, not even pretending like he wasn’t watching the pair show down.</p><p>Bruce blew out a long breath, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jason,” he began, his voice tight. “The amount of toxin in your blood when you got here was nearly lethal. You’re lucky, actually, that you’ve been poisoned by his touch before. It at least gave us a head start on figuring out how to treat you.” The kevlar in his gloves squeaked as he clenched his fists. “Seeing you in so much pain and not being able to take that away for you...” He trailed off, closing his eyes and relaxing his hands. “How did it get to this point, Jason?” Bruce gave Jason a long look, a glint in his eye he often got when working out the facts on a case. “Surely there must have been signs.”</p><p>“Signs?” Jason parroted back in confusion, anger still clouding his thoughts. </p><p>“I know you’ve spent... extended periods of time with him, despite my best wishes. There’s no way that he hosts that level of toxicity and you haven’t noticed it until now. There had to have been symptoms.”</p><p>“Uh.” Jason racked his brain for anything obvious that he’d have missed. “No, not really.”</p><p>“Really?” Dick piped up from across the room. “You never felt any kind of off-kilter around him?”</p><p>Jason thought back on all of the times he spent pressed shoulder to shoulder with Hemlock, arms and legs brushing, laughing in each other’s faces, taking up each other’s space. He thought of the dizziness, the shortness of breath, the lightheadedness he felt when Hemlock touched him. His face turned scarlet, betraying him immediately. Bruce hadn’t moved his calculating gaze. </p><p>“Sometimes I... couldn’t breath right. And it felt like I was going to be sick. Sometimes he touched me and it made me dizzy.” He murmured quietly. God, even the tips of his ears were burning.</p><p>“And you never thought to mention anything to me about this?” Bruce asked incredulously, like he couldn’t believe his charge could be so foolish. </p><p>“...I thought it was normal.” It was barely a whisper, the confession, but he knew that Bruce had heard him just the same.</p><p>And Dick, too, apparently, judging by the raucous laughter that suddenly filled the cave, startling the bats into the air above. </p><p>“You thought it was <em> normal?” </em>He crowed, delighted. He clutched his stomach. “Littlewing, you’ve read way too many romance novels!”</p><p>Jason chanced a glance up at Bruce, who might’ve worn the quick ghost of a smile, but looked grave nevertheless. “I’m going to need you to document every symptom you remember, in detail, at length.”</p><p>Jason gave a quick nod. But he still wasn’t ready to let the conversation die. “It really was an accident. He didn’t know that that would happen. He’s not a bad person. He’s just a kid, like you said.”</p><p>“If you really feel that way, feel free to give that spiel to widows and children of the people he’s helped Ivy torture and kill.” Bruce’s voice was flat again, giving no room for argument. </p><p>No room for anyone who wasn’t as stubborn as Jason, at least. “He’s a good person. I believe that. And I think that when I’m around him, he’s even better. You think he’s a “bad influence” on me or whatever, but maybe I’m a good influence on <em>him</em>. You can’t stop me from seeing him. You said that Batman and Robin aren’t just meant to take down criminals, they’re also meant to give aid to those in need. Hemlock needs someone besides Ivy.”</p><p>“He can receive all of the help he needs from the mental health professionals staffed at Arkham. Which is where he belongs, good intentions or not. Intentions mean nothing once you use your hands to put a man in the ground. From here on out, you are not to engage with neither Ivy nor Hemlock. They are <em> my </em>responsibility to apprehend now.”</p><p>“Oh, please. You’ve never been able to successfully “apprehend” Ivy anyway. And I wouldn’t let you hurt Hemlock.” The words slipped out of Jason’s mouth without his permission, and he knew immediately it was exactly the wrong thing to say. In truth, Bruce had been able to take Ivy in more than once-- but once Hemlock stepped onto the scene, he’d had to divide his attention across the both of them, and Jason as well.</p><p>Silence fell over the cave once more.</p><p>“You’re done.” Bruce’s voice was flat and monotonous. “You can’t even handle a discussion about your behavior, so I know you have no intentions of changing it. You’re going to take a few weeks off while we reevaluate our plans moving forward.” </p><p>That gave Jason pause. He immediately fell out of his defensive stance. “You’re firing me?” Jason hated himself for the tremble he heard in his voice-- doubtlessly, Bruce could hear it too. </p><p>A beat, and then: “I’m not confident in your decision making skills right now, and making the wrong move on the field could end in death. I want what’s best for you, Jason. Even if you don’t agree with it.”</p><p>Jason wanted to say, <em> “Are you fucking serious?” </em> He wanted to say, <em> “That’s not fair." </em>He wanted to say, <em> “I don’t know who I am without Robin”</em>, and, <em>“Would you even still want me around if I wasn’t Robin?”</em>. He wanted to call Bruce an “ <em> asshole”</em>, a “ <em> coward”</em>, a “ <em> hypocrite”</em>, and “ <em> dad”</em>. He wanted to say it all, but it got lodged in his throat in a ball of tangled emotion.</p><p>Luckily, Dick said some of it for him. “Bruce, don’t get hasty. It was a mistake. God knows I’ve done worse, and so have you.”</p><p>Bruce barely cast a glance back over his shoulder at his eldest, who was climbing to his feet with a furrow in his eyebrows. “This doesn’t concern you.”</p><p>Dick barked out a quick, humorless laugh. “Bullshit, it doesn’t concern me. I’m part of this family, too.”</p><p>Jason was taken aback by the flippant use of the “f” word, especially coming from Dick. Dick had spent more time at the manor over the last year, making an effort to be the big brother to Jason that Dick had always wanted for himself. It was tough and at times somewhat awkward, because Dick still had plenty of his own unresolved issues when it came to Bruce and the scaly green shorts that Jason now wore. Some days, even trying to hold a family-wide conversation at the dinner table felt like navigating a minefield. </p><p>For a group of men so intent on not discussing emotions and feelings, they sure did have a lot of them.</p><p>Bruce cast another longer, more lingering look at Dick, doubtlessly thinking along the same lines. If he wanted to keep his eldest son under the manor’s roof, he might have to acquiesce.</p><p>“I make the decisions here.” Bruce gave Jason another appraising look, but Jason couldn’t find the nerve to meet it. He was too busy trying to swallow that lump in his throat. “Fine. Two weeks off. You need one week off to recover regardless, but the second week <em> is </em>a punishment for disobeying my direct orders.” He turned his back again, a clear dismissal in his tone.</p><p>For once, Jason didn’t feel inclined to stick around and bait Bruce into further discussion. He collected his dirty dishes and slunk up the stairs into the manor, ignoring the way that it felt like a retreat.</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>The first week passed in a haze of recovery, Alfred’s oatmeal cookies, and always, <em> always</em>, the memory of how that kiss had felt. The warmth of his mouth, the slide of his tongue, the pull of the hand in his hair-- it all clouded his drowsy mind, causing a stirring in his gut and a warmth across his cheeks. Dick’s constant knowing looks didn’t help, either, and they were, frankly, rather fucking annoying. Dick still had an apartment in Bludhaven that probably had plants that needed watered or rooms that needed aired out. Jason told him so, in a not-so-subtle suggestion that Dick <em> get fucking lost</em>, but his elder brother didn’t take the bait. Once upon a time, he’d gone to extreme lengths to pretend that the manor and its inhabitants didn’t exist. Now, he was ever present; constantly hovering, stealing Jason’s socks and hoodies, and taking way too much satisfaction in knocking Jason on his ass during training sessions. </p><p>Cabin fever set in during week two. He felt as though he’d read every book in the manor at least twice by now, barring the romance novels he’d once coveted-- Dick’s observations back in the cave making him flush in embarrassment whenever he so much as looked at them.</p><p>He was bored and itching for a fight without his usual cathartic release during patrol. He’d even quit tiptoeing around Bruce, almost daring the man to pick an argument that would give Jason an excuse to let loose a little. Annoyingly, he didn’t take Jason’s bait, either.</p><p>Instead, he did something much more mortifying-- he seemed to want to <em> bond </em>with Jason. He shared random, offhanded comments referencing his childhood likes and dislikes, dredging up old memories to share as if Jason could perhaps relate to them. </p><p>He couldn’t, but he understood and appreciated the effort nevertheless. Bruce had never apologized for anything in his entire life, and Jason doubted that Bruce had suddenly had a change of heart about Hemlock. Instead, it seemed like a peace offering, an attempt at smoothing Jason’s ruffled feathers about the almost-firing. Jason had half a mind to reject him, angry as he still was. But the truth is that Jason was tired, honestly. He’d gotten comfortable in the manor over the past few years, warm and soft in the parts of him that used to be cold and jagged. He no longer remembered how to tiptoe and hide away from other people who inhabited his space, couldn’t recall how to rebuff advances in a calculated enough way that ensured he wasn’t bothered again. Trying to do so now was draining, mentally and physically. It was hard to pretend that the very sight of Bruce, Dick, or Alfred repulsed him when all he wanted to do was curl up on the overstuffed couch in the living room and let their collective noise wash over him like a warm blanket.</p><p>It was inevitable, then, that two nights before Jason’s house arrest ended, Bruce caught him creeping out of the library at an ungodly morning hour, spending his usual patrol hours scouring ancient texts. The light from Bruce’s study washed over him as he was beckoned inside.</p><p>The tension between the two was still palpable. Jason sat awkwardly on a hard, wooden chair as Bruce slid back behind his desk, reaching into a drawer below. He pulled out a decanter and, to Jason’s surprise, two glasses. “Don’t tell Alfred.” He said gruffly, pouring a finger of whiskey into one of the crystalline glasses and shoving it in Jason’s direction. </p><p>Surprised, Jason grabbed it with both hands. “Thanks.” He took a quick sip, and took great pains not to display any revulsion on his face. </p><p>Bruce poured his own glass and took a sip. “Jason,” He began, but couldn’t seem to think of what to say next. He took another pull from his glass, and then topped it off. “You’re...you mean a great deal to me.”</p><p>Jason said nothing, running his finger around the rim of his glass.</p><p>“I chose you to be by my side not just because I need you there. I want you there, too. And...I want you here, too.” Jason thought absently that Bruce might have an aneurysm if he carried on in this way much longer.</p><p>“What I’m saying is...I know I can’t protect you from everything. But I want to do what I can.” Bruce slid the decanter back into the drawer and slid it shut.</p><p>“Please, Jason, understand that. I want you to stay away from Hemlock, to any degree that you can.” His eyes bored holes into Jason’s skull. “Please, son.”</p><p>Jason took another pull from his own glass, this time relishing the burn that slid down his throat. The heat reminded him of a kiss.</p><p>“I’ll stay away from Hemlock.” He finally replied hollowly, setting his own glass down on the desk. “To whatever degree I can.”</p><p>They sat there a while longer, both pretending that there was any way that Jason would ever stay away from Hemlock, short of Hemlock’s own request. </p><p>
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</p><p>“Stay away from me.” The coldness in Hemlock’s voice was like a bucket of ice water down Robin’s back.</p><p>“Wha-? Hemlock, come on. Why are you avoiding me?” Robin took a hesitant step back, struggling to keep the hurt he was feeling at the rejection from showing on his face. </p><p>It had been a solid week since Jason had returned to active duty. He tried to walk Bruce’s straight-and-narrow while he reacclimated to patrol, but he’d finally cracked and returned to the warehouse he’d known that Hemlock would be loitering around; the very same one that they had kissed in just weeks ago. </p><p>Hemlock’s face twisted up before settling on a scowl that would make Batman jealous. “<em>Wh</em><em>y am I avoiding you? </em>Robin, I almost <em> killed you</em>.”</p><p>Jason flashed a disarming, toothy smile. “Don’t flatter yourself, Hemlock. I was unconscious at most.”</p><p>“Yeah, because I <em> kissed </em>you.” Hemlock’s voice pitched higher as he squeaked out the last two words, his face flushing a verdant blush. It ruined the effect of his angry, hard rejection. </p><p>Robin found himself blushing back, his fake grin softening into a real smile. “Yeah.”</p><p>The two stared at each other in a semi-awkward silence, just taking each other in.</p><p>“It was nice though. The kiss, I mean. It was. Nice. I...enjoyed it.” Robin stuttered out.</p><p>A beat, and then--</p><p>“Yeah,” Hemlock said in a small voice. “Until you passed out. It was...good.” He looked at his foot, scuffing it in place on the floor.</p><p>Robin’s smile grew. “Yeah? Maybe we could, uh. Try it...again?”</p><p>Hemlock’s head snapped up, the embarrassment clearing from his face, replaced by irritation. “‘Try it again?’ Didn’t you learn last time? I’m <em> poisonous</em>.” He spit out angrily. “I’ll <em> kill </em> you. You can’t even fucking <em> touch </em> me without feeling sick, Robin. <em> Nobody </em>can.” He looked away, crossing his arms. He blinked rapidly as if he were angrily trying to blink away tears.</p><p>The smile dropped off of Robin’s face instantly. “Hemlock...” He stepped forward, reaching out to touch him, to reassure him, but dropped it back at his side upon seeing Hemlock’s full-bodied flinch.</p><p>Jason felt himself flush with shame as he realized that he hadn’t bothered to consider how Hemlock might have felt about this recent discovery beyond Jason’s own involvement. It wasn’t just Jason that Hemlock couldn’t touch, hold, or kiss. It was...<em> everyone</em>, except Ivy. Jason didn’t often think of himself as being a very tactile person, but the idea of never again feeling Dick’s hair ruffles, Bruce’s shoulder claps, or even the odd hug or two…</p><p>“Ivy was right,” Hemlock murmured lowly, vitriol staining his tone. “You’re all so...so <em> fragile</em>.” He made as if to walk away, arms wrapped around himself as if he was holding himself physically together. Panic laced through Jason’s system at the idea that this could be it, that Hemlock would walk away and never return. </p><p>Jason shuffled his feet, suddenly feeling rather out of his depth as he scrambled for something helpful to say, something that might convince Hemlock to see himself and his <em> situation </em>in a more positive light. “At the very least...you’ve got Ivy, right? So if nothing else, having your mom around--”</p><p>“Ivy,” Hemlock snarled as he whipped back around. “Is <em> not </em>my mother.” </p><p>Which, yeah. Jason had known that, vaguely. They’d never been able to get a hold of any of Hemlock’s DNA samples to run against Ivy’s to get a definitive answer, and it was never a subject that either of the plant-based villains seemed too open to discussing. But regardless of any biological relation, Jason could see the love between the two; it was there in Ivy’s protective stance as she pulled attention off of her protege and onto herself during a fight; it made itself known in the honey-coated words that Hemlock spun about the pair’s misadventures at home. </p><p>Jason knew the feeling intimately, could see it mirrored in his own interactions with Bruce every day. They weren’t blood relatives, and while neither Bruce nor Jason were much in the way of words, Jason was confident that they each privately regarded each other as a father and a son. </p><p>Jason also knew that it didn’t fill the void his birth parents had left. There was something to be said about the fact that nearly everyone else Jason knew had parents that were unfaltering in their love, susceptible to the biological drives that his own parents managed to defy. It was a complicated twist of emotions, and he didn’t know what Hemlock’s situation with his birth mother was. He didn’t know what to say to soothe that hurt. </p><p>Jason felt a pang in his chest, watching Hemlock work himself up even further. He wasn’t built for soothing words and reassurance, not the way Dick was. He opted for a distraction from the subject instead.</p><p>“I did some research.” He blurted out, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. He felt like the dumbest person on the planet. Hemlock didn’t want to hear about Jason’s half-baked plan to make out.</p><p>Hemlock shifted on his feet, still faced away, peering at Robin from the corner of his eye. “What...kind of research?” He sounded tired, but he took the bait regardless. </p><p>“It’s about, um, microdosing. You know? Doing something a little bit at a time until you build up a tolerance to it, and you can keep doing it more and more.” Jason said, deliberately keeping his voice light. “Limits the side effects, so you only feel the good stuff.”</p><p>Hemlock finally turned to face him frowning. “You mean like, with drugs?”</p><p>Robin scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I mean yeah, it’s pretty much the same concept. But I figure it could apply here too, you know?”</p><p>Hemlock studied Robin’s face for a moment. “...how would we do that?”</p><p>A flicker of hope started in Robin’s chest. “Well, we’d start off with easy stuff. A quick peck on the lips, you know? And then once we can do that without me getting sick, we can do something more. Like, a longer kiss.” Robin knew his cheeks were bright red. “Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be completely immune. And then I can kiss you anytime I want.” He grinned devilishly, trying to show a hint of Robin’s trademark cockiness that he definitely didn’t feel. </p><p>“Yeah.” Hemlock said, a small, soft smile playing on his own lips. “Then you can kiss me any time you want.”</p><p>Robin’s grin turned real. “Yeah? You’ll try it?”</p><p>Hemlock looked back at him, expression open and earnest, eyes soft. “We do it at my pace, okay? I’m not going to hurt you, not again. And if things go badly, we stop.”</p><p>“Absolutely, sure, anything you want.” Robin agreed readily, heartbeat picking up in excitement. “For sure, completely, let’s do it!” He stepped forward eagerly, reaching out and grabbing Hemlock by the hands as he ducked in quickly.</p><p>Hemlock sidestepped with a squawk. “No!” His face was flushed, and he struggled to keep his own smile off of his face.</p><p>Robin looked at him, a wounded, dumbfounded expression on his face. “No?” He parroted back, indignant question in his voice.</p><p>“No!” Hemlock squeaked out, a giggle tumbling from his lips. “You’ve got to touch me first before you can kiss me. You can’t even hold my hand without feeling sick.”</p><p>“That’s not true, I’m holding your hands right now!” Robin protested. He shook their conjoined hands for emphasis. </p><p>“I’ve got gloves on, dumbass.” Hemlock shook his hands loose and stepped back. “Plus, we’ve been speaking for a while now, and we’re standing kind of, erm, close.” He eyed Robin up and down, who hadn’t moved from the aborted kiss attempt. </p><p>“Right.” Robin cleared his throat and stepped back, cheeks coloring <em> a-fucking-gain</em>. God, he was the most embarrassing person on the planet. He wished the earth would just open up and swallow him whole.</p><p>“How long can you usually be around me before you start feeling...you know, queasy?” Hemlock asked, his face shifting into what Robin privately and affectionately referred to as his <em> “detective face”</em>. In another life, Hemlock would’ve made the perfect Robin, with his constant pursuit of knowledge and general nosiness. He was smart; too smart, really. It was a wonder he’d agreed to this half-baked plot. </p><p><em>He must really like me, then</em>. Robin thought, unbidden, and had to fight to tamper down another smile. It was detective time.</p><p>“Uh, I don’t know. It depends on what we’re doing. Like, if we’re fighting, maybe 10 minutes? If we’re just sitting, maybe longer, like 20? But not if you’re close. Then maybe it’s like, 15. I’ve never really thought about it, to be honest. Like, to time it.”</p><p>“There’s skin contact when we fight. That’s probably why it doesn’t take too long. I’m guessing proximity is a factor, but maybe only because of our breathing? If it’s concentrated inside of me, and I’m breathing into your space, that probably makes it worse. There are all kinds of microscopic droplets in our breath, you know.” Hemlock said, mostly to himself, his nose scrunched up as he considered it all. </p><p>“That’s why it hit me so hard when we kissed. Your spit is toxic. Like one of those dinosaur things with the frills in Jurassic Park.” Robin teased, delighting in Hemlock’s indignant splutters. </p><p>“That’s not--! First of all, I’m-- what<em>ever</em>.” Hemlock whined, his own eyes shining with mirth. “It does give me...ideas, though. I’ll have to do some tests at home with Ivy. I need to get going anyway.” Hemlock stepped back, turning away. </p><p>It was Robin’s turn to get petulant. “Wait, what?! Where’s-- don’t I get my kiss?!”</p><p>“No way! I can see you sweating from here. We’ve been together too long, and I need to confirm my theories first. I get to decide, remember?”</p><p>Robin sighed, but nodded. “Definitely. Your pace. I remember.” </p><p>Hemlock’s face softened again. “I just don’t want to hurt you anymore, Rob. I’ve done it too many times and I… I don’t think I could live with myself if I did it again. You mean a lot to me.”</p><p>Robin flushed, looking at his feet and rubbing the back of his neck in a show of earnest embarrassment. “Yeah, I get it. I feel the same way.”</p><p>“For what it’s worth, though, I do want to kiss you again. It’s pretty much all I’ve thought about.” A devious look played across his face as grabbed onto the rungs of the bottom of the fire escape. “Meet me back here on Thursday, and maybe we can do a reenactment.” </p><p>Robin’s head snapped back in time for him to leer back as Hemlock pulled himself up, up, and away. “Looking forward to it!”</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>Suffice to say, they did not get to do a reenactment on Thursday night. The results of Hemlock’s tests had come back, and his hypothesis was proven true. It was bodily fluids that transmitted the most concentrated of the poisons-- sweat, tears, spit, blood, <em> etcetera, shut up, Robin</em>,  which meant that for now, kisses were off the table until Robin could hold his hands without gloves on for at least 15 minutes.</p><p>Which, honestly, was whatever, because how hard could holding hands be? And while, of <em> course</em>, Robin would respect any and all of Hemlock’s wishes, he couldn’t wait to get a move on to the kinds of kisses that still haunted Jason’s mind at night, playing out behind his eyelids as he slept, as he daydreamed, as he showered, and-- yeah. This hand holding thing would be a pinch.</p><p>Except it wasn’t. On the first attempt, Jason had lasted a mere 5 minutes before he had to sit down, lest his wooziness knock him on his ass. Since then, Hemlock had sequestered paper towels and anti-bacterial wipes into their semi-permanent meeting place to wipe his hands free of sweat before grabbing ahold of Robin in an attempt to make things easier. It kind of worked, and two weeks had passed of nearly nightly hand-holding practice before he could manage to sit through a 15-minute hand-holding session. At the end of it, he’d been sweating buckets and blinking rapidly, but he’d done it. </p><p>When the timer on Hemlock’s watch had beeped, he’d lurched away from Robin to grab a cool bottle of water. Slumped on the ground, guzzling water as if he’d been parched his whole life, Robin looked up at Hemlock blearily and slurred, “Kisses?”</p><p>“Hugs.” Hemlock replied firmly, passing along another water bottle, ignoring the groans from the vigilante at his feet.</p><p>Phase two was both easier and more difficult. Easier, because the side effects were becoming easier to manage, just as Jason had predicted. More difficult, because <em> managing and enduring </em> the side effects weren’t the same as <em> nullifying and not experiencing </em> the side effects. They couldn’t “practice” every day-- Robin was still a hero who operated on the strict schedule of a Bat-shaped walking neurosis, and Hemlock still had villainous jaunts he was expected to partake in with his own mentor. They’d also had to designate “off days” wherein they didn’t push their luck, but rather hung out on opposite sides of the room and just talked. Hemlock was nervous about the side effects lingering or even becoming permanent, with fatigue and dizziness plaguing Robin even when Hemlock wasn’t around after some of their lengthier sessions. However, given time, it always seemed to clear itself up. The boys were playing a very dangerous game, and they knew it. But teen boy rationale always won out in the end.</p><p>Because the “Hug phase” wasn’t nearly as cut and dry as Robin had assumed, not once they’d worked out the definition of “skin to skin contact without kissing”. As it turned out, that definition allowed for a lot of shirtless groping. And neither was willing to give that particular discovery up unduly. </p><p>It was worth it, Jason surmised as he slipped through the cracked glass window to see Hemlock already half undressed and waiting, to endure the sickness that came with holding Hemlock in his arms. It was weird at first, to hold a boy he’d kissed only once in his arms, grinding down, pushing and pulling at his arms and back in a swell of raging teen hormones. They didn’t kiss, and Jason wasn’t allowed to put his lips on Hemlock’s skin yet either, though the temptation was great. It resulted in a lot of heavy, loaded stares and intense eye contact.</p><p>It was <em>awesome</em>.</p><p>When things got to be too much (and they often quickly did), and Jason was gasping for air rather than in pleasure, Hemlock retreated to the other side of the warehouse as he recovered, and the two sat in easy, companionable silence.</p><p>Four months into “the experiment”, as they’d taken to calling it, Tim proclaimed them ready to enter into “Phase 3”. Phase 3 permitted lips to touch skin, and on the very first day, Jason kissed Hemlock on the forehead and then promptly threw up. After that, there was much arguing about how to proceed. It wasn’t immediately clear what had caused such a visceral reaction, but it was clearly cause for great panic between the two as Jason hacked and spit the remnants of his lunch onto the sawdust floor. Eventually Jason determined that he was ready and willing to proceed and risk it all, but Hemlock was much more hesitant. By the end of the night, he’d threatened to call the whole thing off no less than five separate times, only barely talked off the edge by a very desperate Jason.</p><p>In the end, they sat apart from each other, both visibly angry and tense as the pool of Jason’s vomit dried in the middle of the floor. Neither was willing to hear out the other and before long, Jason had called it a night and made his way home.</p><p>(He’d only had to stop on the side of a rooftop to catch his breath twice.)</p><p>The next night, Robin swung into the usual place at the usual time, fully expecting to be met with an empty, rotting warehouse.</p><p>But much to his surprise, Hemlock was already there waiting for him, back turned, eyes closed, feet draped over the edge of the balcony in the very same spot where they’d first kissed, all those months ago. </p><p>Jason approached tentatively and adopted a mirroring position. For a while, there was silence. Jason looked out to the ground floor below, at the crusty puke sitting in the middle of the dusty space.</p><p>“I can’t keep hurting you. And it’s all I ever seem to do.” Hemlock broke the silence, eyes still closed.</p><p>“Hemlock…” Jason shifted in place, reaching out tentatively to wrap his gloved hand around Hemlock’s. </p><p>“Tim.”</p><p>The room was silent enough to hear a pin drop. </p><p>“What?” Jason breathed out, looking wide-eyed at the boy beside him. Finally, Hemlock looked up to meet his gaze, his brilliant green eyes peeling open to reveal the pools of wetness brimming at the edges.</p><p>“My name. It’s Tim.” He blinked rapidly as if to dispel the wetness. </p><p>“Oh.” Jason breathed, looking away too, swallowing hard. This, he knew, was the part where he reciprocated. The part where he confessed his own identity, removing the last of the secrets that stood between them. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t make the words come out. </p><p>It wasn’t just his own identity to be shared, but Bruce's and even Dick’s. Even a first name in a town such as Gotham was too much, could be too easily traced. It was everything Bruce had trained him not to do. It was the biggest rule in the book.</p><p>“I’m--” He choked out. He wanted to be vulnerable with Hemlock-- with <em> Tim</em>. And wasn’t that weird? Vulnerable was Jason’s least favorite thing to be. It’s what made him lash out with a barbed tongue and sharp fists when he was young and sleeping on the street, avoiding smarmy johns and hired thugs, and what compelled him to react the same way to Bruce and Alfred and kindness and the promise of a real <em>home</em>. Vulnerability was liability. It was one thing to roll around on the dirty floor entangled with a villain equipped with a mouth full of toxins, but another to-- to what? Be able to put a name to that face, and put a name to his own in return? He felt like a jackass. At this point in their relationship, it should be a no brainer. He just needed to be able to say that he was--</p><p>“I know.” Jason looked back and met Tim’s eyes, tender with a kindness Jason was positive he didn’t deserve. “You don’t have to say it.”</p><p>Jason looked away, overwhelmed with gratitude. When he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Tim….” The name rolled off his tongue, dripping with saccharine sweetness. He considered, for a moment, how to articulate what he wanted to say.</p><p>“I don’t mind getting sick, Tim. The risk is worth the reward to me. Just... just to prove that it’s possible, you know? Just so that you could know that you can be touched. Tim, you can be held, and kissed, the way that you deserve. If that’s by me, o-or by your parents and family, or even. Even if one day, that’s by someone who’s not me.” Jason blinked hard, irritated by the wetness he found in his own eyes. “‘You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.’” He murmured softly, rubbing his thumb over the back of Tim’s trembling hand. When Jason struggled to come up with his own words, it was easy to borrow the sentiments of someone else. “It’s not selfish to want that for yourself, Tim.” </p><p>Tim heaved a shuddering sigh, flexing his hand within Jason’s hold. It was quiet between them for a few minutes, both seemingly in completely separate worlds.</p><p>“I almost killed my mom.”</p><p>Jason broke out of his reverie with an alarmed look. “What?”</p><p>Tim withdrew his hand from Jason’s grasp, folding them tightly in his lap, looking intently at the ground below them. </p><p>“Before I was born,” Tim began slowly, “There was this attack on a party they were at. It was Scarecrow. He doused the crowd with a new, bastardized version of fear gas. I don’t really know the details. Whatever it was... it. Changed me, I guess. Caught me at just the right time to mutate my DNA, as far as we could figure.” He shrugged, a far off, glassy look in his eyes. “It made my mom so sick. She almost died.”</p><p>Jason swallowed hard, mind racing through any of the old case files he’d ever read that had to do with Scarecrow, but he couldn’t pinpoint the exact attack Tim was referencing. <em> Wasn’t that fucked up? That psychopath has hurt so many people so many times, it’s not even particularly noteworthy anymore. </em></p><p>“She couldn’t even... she could barely look at me. She never touched me. Or held me. I overheard her with my dad, once. She said that being around me made her <em> feel sick</em>.” He blinked, a teardrop escaping the corner of his eye before hastily wiping it away. “I thought it was just some bullshit, you know? It was in her head, and she just hated me because I’d made her so sick when she was pregnant. And maybe that’s partially true, I guess. But also now I know that it’s real. The sickness, I mean. Being so close to me. Maybe I should’ve known. My dad hated being around me, too.” </p><p>Jason looked at him, wide eyed, mouth dry.</p><p>“It’s no wonder they didn’t want me. I can’t even blame them.” Jason opened his mouth to protest, but Tim cut him off with a wry smile. “It’s okay. I’ve got Ivy. It’s not fully the same, you know? But it’s good. It’s better than anything else.”</p><p>“A-and me.” Jason stuttered, clearing his throat and setting his hand heavily on Tim’s shoulder. “You’ve got me, too.”</p><p>Tim mustered up a watery smile. “Thanks.”</p><p>It felt wrong to say <em> “you’re welcome”</em>, so Jason just sat there, content to let soft silence overtake them, broken only by the slightest sniffles from Hemlock. </p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>“The Experiment” continued after that, and what little of Jason’s thought capacity that hadn’t already been taken over by Tim was consumed with thoughts of Tim’s childhood and his parents. He’d spent a few weekends at Gotham Public Library, scouring birth records from 15 to 16 years ago for any babies named “Tim” or any variation thereof, hoping for a hit that could be cross-referenced with any available lists of victims from Scarecrow attacks within the same timeframe. It was time consuming work, given the limited technology available, but there was absolutely no way in hell that Jason was going to risk doing any of the research on any Bat-related server. The last thing Jason needed was Bruce making a hard situation even harder by asking questions and unmasking Hemlock.</p><p>Nevertheless, Jason acquainted himself with the antiquated filing system and threw himself headfirst into his research. There were approximately just 9 babies born within Gotham City limits within the selected timeframe named “Timothy”, “Timothea”, or even just “Tim”. From there, it became an easy process of elimination. Timothea was the wrong gender; sadly, Timothy Greene had passed away in a car accident two years prior; Tim Marcus was fulfilling a stint in juvie after being caught running for Two Face; finally, Tim Woo had become a noted social media influencer with a large public audience. </p><p>It was the next “Timothy” on his list that caught his eye. Timothy Drake. His birth announcement in the Gotham Gazette didn’t list his parents’ names-- unusual, but not necessarily a red flag. The Drake name adorned many of the downtown skyscrapers in Gotham-- Drake Industries was Wayne Tech’s biggest competitor, and, ironically enough, the Drake Estate was Wayne Manor’s closest neighbor. Jason knew that Janet and Jack Drake had a son, but he was only a few years old-- not even close to fitting the parameters. If he thought hard enough, he could conjure up a few cloudy images of the pair, schmoozing with investors at a stuffy charity gala. The Drakes made only a few public appearances at formal events, and Jason himself made even less. He could probably hit Jack Drake with a car and still not know him from Adam.</p><p>But Drake wasn’t a highly unusual surname; it could be that Timothy Drake wasn’t related to the Drake tycoons at all. Regardless, he threw himself into research once again, looking forward to being able to cross this name off the list and move on to the next.</p><p>Except... he couldn’t find a thing. There were no social media accounts, no Honor Roll or Dean’s List mentions, no school event postings that mentioned his name. It was like Tim Drake existed only in theory, but not in practice-- there was no record of any other human being in Gotham ever having interacted with him. He even snuck through his backdoor in Gotham General’s firewall to look for his birth certificate. Nothing. </p><p>Jason sat back in his chair, dissatisfied. He contemplated calling it a day and pick the search back up next weekend-- it had taken him quite a few trips to comprehensively compile his list. What was one more?</p><p>But... it would eat at him, if he didn’t find the answers now. He was so close, he could feel it. </p><p>With a sigh, Jason reached into his backpack. He cracked open his second Redbull of the day, shifting uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair. Back to the grind. </p><p>He opened a new tab, deciding to skip the birth certificate for now. Instead, he decided to operate on the wild assumption that somehow, Janet and Jack Drake <em> were </em>the parents. If they were, it would be easy to find out if they’d ever been in a Scarecrow attack.</p><p>But it wasn’t just a Scarecrow attack. Jason’s mind drifted back to what Tim had said-- <em> it was a bastardized version of fear gas</em>. </p><p>Jason thought of Tim’s pretty, soft green skin and the powerful vines he could summon from within the ground. Ivy wasn’t just a mentor; she had to be more involved with Tim than that.</p><p>A simple Google search of “<em>Scarecrow Poison Ivy Party Attack 20XX </em>” yielded few relevant results. If Jack and Janet really were Tim’s parents, though, it was likely to be less of a party and more of a…</p><p>“<em>Scarecrow Poison Ivy Gala Attack 20XX </em>” had several more hits. A charity gala had been crashed by Scarecrow, but then was shortly foiled by a young Batman. Nothing super unusual, in and of itself; however, a few of the articles printed the Commissioner's statement on the event, wherein he described how Batman had determined that Scarecrow had used some of Ivy’s spores in his gas. It was attached to a warning that perhaps the villains had made an official team-up, and that citizens should be on alert for further attacks from the duo. A few pictures of the event, but nothing overtly useful-- none of the captions mentioned either of the Drakes by name, and he had no concrete way to place them at the event at all.</p><p>Moments away from scrapping this avenue of research and moving on to the next Tim, Jason scrolled past a few black and white stills from the night before quickly scrolling back up. He zoomed in as best as he could, focusing on the top right corner-- there.</p><p>It was a pixelated side-profile of Jack Drake holding a champagne flute-- grainy, nothing that would hold up to a jury’s scrutiny-- but unmistakably him. </p><p>The pieces were all coming together. It seemed likely that Jack and Janet Drake were both at the party in question and were Tim’s-- <em> Hemlock’s-- </em>parents. </p><p>He just needed the birth certificate to prove it. </p><p>Newly reinvigorated thanks to a solid lead and Redbull, Jason reopened the tab to Gotham General. </p><p>It was possible that Tim wasn’t born at a hospital. Many of the lower-income families in the city couldn’t afford the bills and either used local clinics or contracted midwives for home births. But the Drakes were loaded, and Tim had said his mother was critically sick. Surely she would be in a hospital, the best that money could buy? However, it wasn’t uncommon for the uber-rich families of Gotham to contract midwives in an early quest for “organic, spiritually-infused” home births. And if Janet were truly ill, she would have probably found comfort in resting in her own home.</p><p>He snuck back through Gotham General’s firewall once again, this time looking for any contracts with outside agencies that could have helped with home births. In little to no time at all, he’d stumbled upon a local private clinic, <em> Growing Miracles, </em>that had partnered with the hospital for a short period of time when they’d first opened their doors. There were only a few employees on the clinic’s payroll, with the majority of the staff on loan from the hospital’s pediatric unit. Cecilia Stanhouse was the first staff member to be employed, and seemed to be the most senior member of the clinic. </p><p>Mrs. Stanhouse seemed to be many years retired now, but she still maintained an active social media presence, and routinely posted updates on her personal website. She posted blog updates about her current occasional stints as a doula, but mostly posted links to outside articles. Her website’s banner cheerfully announced that she had spent 15 years delivering over 250 babies in Gotham City and surrounding areas. </p><p>Clearly, she kept records.</p><p>He moved back to Growing Miracles’ website. The clinic was still operating, but on a much smaller scale. It still primarily operated as a children’s clinic, and funnily enough, it was located just down the street.</p><p>
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</p><p>The walk to Growing Miracles took no more than 15 minutes-- five minutes longer than it should have, but Jason had walked past it completely and had to double back. Its front door blended into the building, the paint on the sign peeling and cracking with age. If you weren’t actively looking for it, it would be easy to blow off as just another unobtrusive small business on the street, wedged between a barber shop and pawn shop. </p><p>A soft bell tinkled as he pushed open the door. A small heater whirred in the corner, feebly blowing out an imitation of hot air. There were a few chairs lined up along the wall, the cushions cracked and spilling stuffing on the corners. The place had seen better days, for sure. </p><p>“Coming!” A cheerful voice called from beyond the counter. A cascade of noise followed as a short, portly woman with a tall blonde beehive and a nametag that read “Candy” hastily made her way to the front. She looked surprised to see Jason, as if she had been expecting someone else entirely. She recovered quickly enough, a bright, cheery smile blossoming on her face. “Hi, honey! Can I help you?”</p><p>“Uh, hi. My family just moved houses and some of the boxes got lost in the move. And, gosh, some of the stuff that got lost was important stuff, like family photos and important paperwork”-- Candy gasped in sympathetic horror-- “including my birth certificate. And I’ve started applying to colleges and scholarships and stuff and I just-- I have to have my birth certificate for that stuff, you know? My mom said that one of the ladies here helped deliver me, and that maybe you guys would have a copy or something lying around or something? Or even just like, a birth record? It’s just, gosh, we don’t really know what to do, and I was wondering if you could help me out?” He said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.</p><p>“Oh, dear.” Candy simpered, pushing a wisp of hair out of her face. “You’re in a bit of a bind, aren’t you? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m just not sure, honey. We’ve been around for so long, not a lot of stuff around here is digital, and we don’t have much in the way of orderly archives-- we’ve moved a few times too, you see-- and so I’m just not sure we even have records like that around.”</p><p>Jason didn’t even have to pretend to look crestfallen. “Are you sure? I’m sorry, ma’am, I hate to be an inconvenience, and I’m sure you’re probably crazy busy, it’s just that. I have to prove citizenship to get this scholarship, and the deadline is this weekend, and without it, I just don’t know that I can even afford college at all.” Jesus, this was depressing. Jason was going to hell for this one, for sure.</p><p>It seemed to have the desired effect, though-- Candy’s bright pink lips pursed into an “O”, her brows furrowing. “Oh honey, no! I’m not busy. I’d love to help, I’m just not sure…” She looked over her shoulder, into the corridor behind her. “Maybe I can give a quick look...but it’s not organized, and I’m not sure we’d have kept everything, and…”</p><p>“I can help you!” Jason offered quickly, sensing her resolve wavering. “Since it’s so disorganized, I can help sort through some stuff, if that’s alright with you! It would probably go faster that way.” </p><p>“It’s sensitive paperwork, dear. I’m not sure you should be allowed back there.”</p><p>“I’m not interested in anything else except my own birth certificate, ma’am. I promise.” He made his eyes wide, projecting every once of charm and trustworthiness he could muster onto his face.</p><p>“Well...my next appointment isn’t for an hour, and it would be faster…” Candy murmured, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Come around this way, dear. Let’s see what we can do.”</p><p><em> Bingo</em>. </p><p>Jason followed her down the dimly lit hallway, past cheerful paintings of children holding hands and crooked, generic portraits of flower vases.</p><p>She turned to the last door on the left, pulling out a small keyring. “Please excuse the mess. Like I said, we’ve moved a few times, and we were going to try to digitize, and, well, we just haven’t gotten around to a good filing system yet.”</p><p>“No worries, ma’am, I’ll be sure to mind my manners.” He flashed his most charming smile and was rewarded with flushed cheeks and a ducked head.</p><p>“Well, here we are.” Candy unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing a large room absolutely filled with cardboard boxes; some open, with contents spilling onto the floor, while others were duct taped shut and stacked on top of each other. He tried his damndest not to outwardly grimace at the state of the place.</p><p>“Back around this way is where we keep most of our birth records. We don’t really do a whole lot of home births anymore, so most of this stuff is just medical records.” Candy paused, seeming to consider what she had just said. “Don’t look at them, please.”</p><p>Jason didn’t bother responding, instead focusing on picking his way through the cardboard maze, trying hard not to step on any of the paperwork spilling onto the floor as he followed her to the back corner. He was relieved to see Candy approach the line of rusting filing cabinets in the room. At least there was some semblance of order to the birth records.</p><p>“Well, you can get started here, and I’ll start over here. Um, what did you say your name was again, sweetie?”</p><p>Shit. Jason froze. He honestly hadn’t thought he’d get this far. If Tim Drake really was Jack and Janet Drake’s son, then surely he’d be recognizable. Or, at least, his parents would be. It would be too easy to prove it a lie. There was probably some sense of pride that came with delivering the child of two local multi-millionaires. </p><p>“It’s... Jason.” He said, slowly, trying quickly to weigh out the pros and cons of lying. Jason Todd was somewhat of a well-known name too, after Bruce Wayne had decided to take him in. But the public had quickly lost interest in him, dubbing him a common street rat who’d momentarily lucked out. <em> Besides</em>, he thought, looking at Candy’s earnest expression, <em> this woman might not be much for gossip. </em></p><p>“Jason Todd.” He said, telling his first truth of the afternoon.</p><p>“Well, Mr. Todd, the T’s are meant to be down this way, but at one point, they were organized alphabetically <em> and </em>by birth year, so it’s hard to tell. At one point, it seemed like every employee had their own filing system! You start down there anyway, and I’ll check where the T’s are meant to be.” Candy immediately turned to the top drawer and pulled it out, skimming through the files.</p><p>Jason followed suit, turning to his own filing cabinet. He eyed the drawers before pulling out the one with a piece of peeling scotch tape stuck to the handle, a hastily scribbled “C-D” written in sharpie inscribed on it.</p><p><em> Dabb, Daniels, Dambaucher, Davies, Davison, Daum… </em>Each file was meticulously marked, with some files bursting with paperwork, while others were as slim as a single piece of paper. It seemed that any children with the same last name, related or not, made it into the same file and into a subfolder. The clinic had been open for almost 25 years, and if Cecelia Stanhouse had spent 15 of those years delivering over 250 babies alone, there was no telling how many files he would have to dig through.</p><p>The first drawer was a bust, as was the second drawer. Twenty minutes later, and patience wearing thin because <em>how hard was it to fucking file this shit in order, who the fuck had put “Zepp” and “Flanders” in the middle of the “C” drawer, Jesus Christ,</em> <em>learn your alphabet, </em>Jason pulled out the third drawer, labeled “D-F”. </p><p>And there it was, right on top, not even properly stored in a vertical fashion. The spine of the folder was worn, but it seemed to have only a few pieces of paper inside. There was the birth certificate for an “Andromeda Drake” from a few years ago, but hidden behind that was a copy of the birth certificate for one Timothy Jackson Drake. Born to parents Janet and Jack Drake.</p><p>It was him.</p><p>There was one more paper, paperclipped to the certificate. A quick look over at Candy confirmed that she was still lost in her own world, flicking through her files at a leisurely speed. He quickly flipped the certificate back to get a look at the other paper.</p><p>It was an incident report. </p><p>It was short and succinct. The baby had been born, but it was gravely ill, as was the mother. The midwife who was helping to deliver the baby had dropped it-- she had been holding the baby and had been overtaken by a dizzy spell. The woman accepted full responsibility for the incident. </p><p>The baby had died.</p><p>Hemlock had described a childhood of abandonment. He’d said that his parents had pretended he wasn’t around, that he wasn’t alive.</p><p>They were good actors, Jason surmised. He could hardly recall the Drakes at the precious few galas he’d been made to attain, but he remembered the announcement of their most recent son, and the publicity it had garnered them. Finally, an heir to Drake Industries. He remembered boredly flipping through a magazine; it had had a picture of the family within it, maybe. They lived just next door, coming and going as they pleased, as if they hadn’t a care in the world, as if they hadn’t had a son named Timothy Jackson Drake, as if they hadn’t lied to hospital staff and declared him deceased, as if they hadn’t wiped all trace of him from existence, save for one lonely newspaper birth announcement wedged between the classified ads. </p><p>It was disgusting. The way they played pretend house, abandoning their own son because he wasn’t perfect enough to fit into their little nuclear family. Jason’s own childhood hadn’t been perfect-- far from it-- but at least he knew that his mother had loved him, in all of the ways that she could manage. </p><p>“A-<em>ha!</em> Found it!” </p><p>The fog of rage that had clouded Jason’s mind dissipated as he looked over to see Candy’s triumphant grin, waving around a file folder. She looked down at it.</p><p>“Jason Peter Todd. Is that you, sweetie?”</p><p>“Uh. Yeah.” He blinked in surprise, absent-mindedly closing Tim’s folder, placing it back where he’d found it and sliding the drawer shut. “Wait, what?”</p><p>“Your birth certificate.” She elaborated, a cheery grin splitting her face in two. She held it out to him. </p><p>“Oh? <em>Oh!</em> Yes! Thank you so much! Wow, that’s great.” He gave a nervous laugh, accepting the file folder. </p><p>“I imagine you can just keep that. I’m not sure what purpose it has here, collecting dust. Who the heck knows when we’ll get around to creating a proper archive.” She gave an exaggerated wink before turning face and heading out of the room, keeping up a steady but incomprehensible chatter that permeated the air.</p><p>Jason blinked down at the closed file, before following her with a start. Well, alright. That was unexpected.</p><p>Candy shut and relocked the door behind them. “Well, I’m just so excited for you, darling. I admit I didn’t have much hope. But it all worked out in the end!”</p><p>“Thank you so much, Ms. Candy. You have no idea how much of a help you’ve been.” Jason replied earnestly, following her back to the waiting room. “Seriously, I really don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t agree to help me out.”</p><p>He really didn’t. It hadn’t even been a half-baked plan; quarter-baked, at best. He’d really lucked out at getting access to the archives.</p><p>“It was no trouble at all, honey. Now, you go out there and make us proud!” She gave a gummy smile, watching him reach for the door.</p><p>“Huh? Oh, yes! Yeah, this file is really gonna change my life.” He agreed, recalling his scholarship sob story. He tapped the closed file for good measure.</p><p>“For the better. I know it.” Candy gave an exaggerated wave as he pushed out into the blustery air. </p><p>He ambled back down the street, back towards the library as he eyed the slowly setting sun. Alfred would be around to pick him up soon enough. It had been a long and surprisingly productive day. He’d cracked Hemlock’s full identity, finally. He wouldn’t dream of ratting him out, but there was still a layer of anger simmering under his skin at the fact that the Drakes had gotten away with denying him for so long. It wasn’t his call, for sure, but he wanted to let Tim know that he was willing to back him up if he ever decided to expose them. It was the least that the Drakes, and Tim, deserved. </p><p>A gust of wind sent the file in his hand aflutter, and he turned his attention back to the papers in his hand. It felt like it was a relic from another life. Sometimes, it felt like Catherine and Willis were nothing but a far-off childhood dream. He’d spent so long alone-- Willis long gone, Catherine unreachable as she dwelled on whatever plane of existence cocaine seemed to send her to. It was strange to have a piece of paper that connected them to him in a concrete way. Absently, he flipped it open, mind still on Tim.</p><p>He drew up short. </p><p>
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</p><p>“And you think she’s alive?” Tim looked up from where he was currently sitting between Jason’s legs, his back to Jason’s front. He squeezed Jason’s hands in his lap.</p><p>“She is. I’m sure of it. She’s a doctor. Can you believe that?” Jason gave a watery laugh. “I looked it up on the Batcomputer and everything.” He didn’t mention that he himself had found it hard to believe.</p><p>He felt volatile, completely off-kilter. He wanted to give in to the rage that tinged his thoughts, wanted to start swinging and screaming until he didn’t have to think about anything other than the adrenaline in his veins. He also wanted to give in to the sadness, the part of him that mourned what his future could have been, if only his mother had decided to stick around. He wanted to sit down and not move, wanted to cry until there weren’t any tears left to shed.</p><p>He didn’t do either.</p><p>Instead, he held Tim tightly as he recounted his recent discovery about his true parentage.</p><p>“Sheila Haywood.” Tim repeated, rolling the name around in his mouth. “Sounds like a movie star.”</p><p>“She’s pretty like one.” Jason responded, voice raw. </p><p>“So <em> that’s </em>where you got your dashing good looks from.” Tim joked weakly, tipping his head back to meet Jason’s gaze.</p><p>Jason indulged him with a small smile, leaning down to kiss his exposed neck.</p><p>Tim groaned. “Aaand <em> that’s </em>the end of that, then.” He complained, climbing to his feet and pulling away from Jason’s octopus-like arms. Right on cue, Jason leaned his head back, squeezing his eyes shut as he fought off the nausea. “Idiot.” He said, voice dripping with fondness. He sat himself down a few feet away, facing Jason. </p><p>“Right.” Jason said weakly, shaking his head as if to clear it. </p><p>“So, what are you going to do?” Tim asked, flexing his outstretched foot as if to tap Jason’s toes with his own. Jason flexed his foot back, the tips of their shoes touching with a dull <em>thunk</em>. </p><p>“I don’t know. I think... I think I’m gonna reach out to her.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Maybe. I mean, why did she leave? Maybe she didn’t want to. She probably wonders about me, right? I don’t want to, like, invade her life or anything. I just. I just want to know her.”</p><p>Tim drew his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. It made him look small. “I don’t think she would have just abandoned you.” He said softly. “Moms don’t do that.” The “<em>not like mine did </em>” went unspoken. </p><p>Suddenly, Jason felt awful for laying all of this onto Hemlock, who clearly had his own struggles with abandonment and family members. He probably didn’t want to hear about Jason’s <em>third </em>set of parental figures when Tim himself had only recently gotten <em>one</em>. </p><p>“I think it’s a good idea. Just to find out, you know? Just to get some answers. Even if you only talk to her this once.” Tim cut into Jason’s thoughts with a small, encouraging smile.</p><p>“She lives in Ethiopia. She’s one of those “Doctors Without Borders” or something like that. She helps out in villages around there.” Jason had to fight to keep the smile off of his face. She sounded incredible. She sounded like the kind of person who would be a proud mother. He ached with longing. </p><p>He wanted-- he <em>needed-- </em> to know why she had left him in the care of Catherine and Willis. Maybe at the time, Catherine had been an upstanding citizen herself. Maybe Sheila was under the assumption that Jason was well-loved, well-fed, and well cared for. She didn’t know the hardships and turmoil he’d faced, and if she <em>had </em>known, she’d have come back for him in a heartbeat. </p><p>“Ethiopia? Wow.” Tim tilted his head, a soft look on his face. “If you’re going, I’ll go with you.” </p><p>Jason’s chest filled with warmth. It made him want to do something stupid, like plant a kiss on Tim’s soft lips and run a hand through his tangled hair. </p><p>“Thank you. But no,” Jason shook his head. “I think this is something that I have to do by myself.” He breathed out a shuddering breath. “Is that stupid?”</p><p>“It’s a little cliche,” Tim admitted, “but I’ll let you have it, just this once. You just have to promise me something.” He said, a serious look on his face.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah. You have to take me on our own international vacation some day.” Tim smirked, breaking the tense atmosphere once again.</p><p>“Deal.” Jason laughed, the tightness in his chest easing itself loose for the first time in days-- for the first time since he’d laid his eyes on his real birth certificate two days ago. “Wherever you wanna go.”</p><p>“Let’s go in a few years.” Tim said decisively. “Paris, maybe. I’ve always wanted to go there. Maybe Greece?”</p><p>“A few years, huh?” Jason mused.</p><p>“Yeah. So that by then you’ll have built up enough tolerance to spend the whole time with your tongue down my throat.” Tim said seriously.</p><p>Jason laughed, loud and open in the way he rarely did, bent over and grasping his sides. Tim cracked his own smile before his own tinkling laughter joined in.</p><p>“You’re a riot, sweetheart.” Jason managed between chuckles. Tim blushed that lovely verdant color.</p><p>Silence befell them once again.</p><p>“When are you gonna go?” Tim asked, inching closer to Jason as if to resume his old position.</p><p>“I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe?” Jason reached out and grabbed ahold of Tim’s ankle, hauling him forward and into his lap again. “I can’t stand sitting around here doing nothing. It’s the not-knowing that’s eating at me.”</p><p>“I get that.” Tim snuggled back against Jason’s chest again. “How are you gonna do it?”</p><p>“I’m taking the Batplane, obviously.” Tim didn’t even have to look up to know there was a smirk on Jason’s face; it was evident in just his voice.</p><p>“Obviously.” Tim said dryly. “Have you told B?” </p><p>That gave Jason pause. “...No.” He confided reluctantly. “I’m not sure that he would understand.”</p><p>Tim was quiet for a moment, lost in the feel of Jason’s thumbs rubbing circles on his hip bones. “I think he might. If you give him a chance.” </p><p>The grip on his hips tightened to an almost bruising grip momentarily. “No.” Jason bit out. “He wouldn’t.”</p><p>He really, really wouldn’t. Bruce had never known anything but unconditional love from his parents. Sure, he’d lost them at a young age, but even then, he’d had Alfred to step in and give him a loving, guiding hand. He didn’t know what it was like to lay alone on a dingy mattress with hunger pains keeping him awake. He didn’t know what it was like to go weeks without seeing either of the adults that were meant to care for him, left alone in a dirty apartment with nothing but cup noodles and stale potato chips. He didn’t know what it was like to hide in fear from the very man whose last name he shared.</p><p>Bruce would think it ridiculous that Jason wanted to know Sheila. Bruce had given him a stable home-- why should Jason want more?</p><p><em> Or worse, </em> the small voice in his head whispered, <em> he’d be supportive</em>. Too supportive, maybe. Maybe he’d see Sheila Haywood as a convenient way to get rid of him, the way that Jason knew he secretly wanted. Jason was a lot of work; he was big enough to admit that about himself. He was quick to fly off the handle, to hit a little too hard. He was unnecessarily indignant about inconsequential things and tested Bruce’s patience just because he could, because he wanted to see how far he could push Bruce until Bruce finally pushed back, the way that Willis used to, the only way that Jason had ever known. It was coming, slowly but surely. Bruce didn’t trust him anymore; not as a sidekick, and not as a member of the household. He’d wanted to bench Jason permanently. He eyed Jason’s every move on the field critically, as if he, too, was waiting for Jason to snap. </p><p>Jason thought back to a year ago, to Felipe Garzonas, to the way that Bruce hadn’t looked him in the eye for weeks.</p><p>He felt sick.</p><p>He’d overstayed his welcome in Gotham.</p><p>“Okay.” Tim cut in quietly. “Just... be careful, okay? I’ll miss you while you’re gone. You’d better keep me updated. And don’t you <em> dare </em>decide to move to Ethiopia permanently.” He said sternly, turning in Jason’s hold to look him in the eyes.</p><p>“I won’t, don’t worry.” Jason pushed some of Tim’s hair out of his eyes, searching his face. “I won’t be gone long. Three days, tops. Then I’ll be right back here.” </p><p>“You’d better be.” Tim murmured, leaning his forehead against Jason’s. </p><p>Against his better judgement, Jason pressed a soft kiss to Tim’s cheek. He waited a second for the usual nausea, but it didn’t come. “Hey, I think I leveled up!”</p><p>Tim laughed, pulling his face away, threading his hands through Jason’s hair and tugging. “Yeah?” He smiled. “Think you can handle a real kiss?”</p><p>“Can <em>I</em> handle it? Can <em>you</em> handle it?” Jason waggled his eyebrows. “C’mere, sweetheart.” He pulled on his hands, making Tim sway forward. </p><p>“If it’s gonna make you sick, we better make it worth it.” Tim murmured, lips brushing Jason’s.</p><p>“It’s always worth it.” Jason whispered, complete sincerity in his words. Tim’s face flushed at the sentiment as he finally leaned in and connected their lips.</p><p>It started soft and sweet, similar to the way their last kiss had begun; but, just like last time, it didn’t stay that way for very long. Jason wound his hand through the hair at the base of Tim’s skull and held him in a steady grip as Tim’s hands fluttered over Jason’s torso. Jason felt his chest constrict painfully, and quickly slid his tongue into Tim’s mouth, reveling in the warmth. Tim made a noise in the back of his throat and gave the back of Jason’s teeth one last lick before pulling back. </p><p>Jason’s head thunked back against the wall as he screwed his face up tight, pressing his fingers into his temples. “Fuck.” He grit out.</p><p>Tim scrambled up out of his lap and Jason leaned to the side and dry-heaved. Tim pulled out one of the water bottles he kept permanently stashed in the warehouse and cracked the cap open, handing it over. Jason dug around his tool belt for some ibuprofen. He tossed them into his mouth like candy and chugged half of the water bottle before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.</p><p>His head lolled back in Tim’s direction. His face was sweaty and pekid, but he was smiling anyway. “Nice.” He said succinctly. He licked his lips and narrowed his eyes in Tim’s direction. “I’ve got an idea for when I get back.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Tim said, feeling rather out of breath himself.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>Jason huffed a laugh. “You’ll find out when I get back. But you’re gonna like it, I think.”</p><p>“Well.” Tim scuffed his foot on the floor, before reaching down and picking up his gloves from where he’d abandoned them earlier. “Hurry back, then.”</p><p>Jason pulled on his own long-discarded gloves and climbed to his feet slowly, staggering a few feet. </p><p>Tim reached out with one hand to steady him, but quickly pulled it away, afraid of making Jason’s dizziness any worse.</p><p>Jason caught his hand, though, and gave it a squeeze. “One more kiss for the road?” </p><p>Tim laughed incredulously. “No! Robin, you’re aren’t even looking directly at me. Is your vision blurred?”</p><p>“That’s none of your business, frankly.”</p><p>“Robin!” Tim admonished. “Let me help you get home. At least part of the way.”</p><p>“No, I’m good.” Jason knew better. Bruce had eyes all over the city, it seemed. This old warehouse was one of the only safe havens anymore. Bruce had been infringing more and more onto Jason’s usual patrol route recently. Probably to make sure Jason wasn’t doing the exact thing he was doing right now.</p><p>“Well, let me know when you get home at least. Just like, touch some grass and think really hard about me. Ivy will probably catch it, maybe.”</p><p>“And give away the Batcave’s secret location via plant-based echolocation? I don’t think so.” Jason laughed.</p><p>“I’ve already been to the Batcave, Robin.” Tim replied flatly. </p><p>“I’m gonna be fine, Tim.” Jason sucked in a breath. “I feel better already.” He headed over to the window’s edge, Tim following close behind. “Don’t you worry about me, okay?” He said in a softer voice, meeting Tim’s eyes. “I’ll see you in a few days.”</p><p>“Have fun.” Tim gave a fleeting smile. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”</p><p>Jason hopped through the window and spun back around. “Can’t wait to <em>tell</em> you all about it.” Quickly, without warning, he swooped in and pressed his lips to Tim’s, swallowing his gasp of surprise. “For good luck.” He said, pulling back with a mischievous grin on his face. </p><p>He dodged Hemlock’s retaliatory elbow and shot his grapple across the roof, taking off without another word.</p><p>Hemlock watched him go, an easy grin on his own face. It didn’t even falter as he saw Robin’s silhouette swing wide as the inevitable dizziness hit him. <em> Serves him right, </em>he thought, the memory of that last searing kiss running through his mind. It had only been a few minutes, but Tim missed him already. His chest hurt with it.</p><p>
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</p><p>Two days later, Jason Peter Todd was dead, and that feeling in Tim’s chest lodged itself there permanently.</p>
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